Although the new influenza H1N1 strain has been receiving a great deal of attention, apparently last season’s H1N1 and H3N2 strains continue to circulate, at least in the United States. FluView, the weekly surveillance report from the CDC, indicates that during weeks 17 and 18, seasonal influenza A (H1), A (H3), and B viruses are …
Co-circulation of three human influenza A subtypes Read More »
On episode #32 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Raul Rabadan converse about polio survivors in iron lungs, bocavirus, structure of mimivirus, and genome sequence analysis of influenza H1N1 viruses. [powerpress url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV032.mp3″] Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #32 or subscribe in iTunes or by email.
We have spent over a week discussing the effects of polymerase error rates on viruses. RNA viruses have the highest error rates in nature, a property that is believed to benefit the viral population. For example, selective pressure from the immune system or antiviral drugs may lead to changes that are beneficial for the population. …
The capacity of RNA viruses to produce prodigious numbers of mutations is a powerful advantage. But remember that selection and survival must balance genetic fidelity and mutation rate. Many mutations are not compatible with viral replication. Consequently, if mutation rates are high, at some point accumulating base changes lead to lethal mutagenesis – the population …
Here are answers to questions sent to virology blog about the new strain of influenza H1N1 that continues to spread globally. Q: Are you aware of efforts to make the virus strain nomenclature more informative? Understanding what segments/genes are related historically and sequence wise to what is confusing using the ‘serological’ definitions like H1N1. What …
Influenza A/Mexico/2009 (H1N1) – Questions & Answers Read More »
If you have been following our discussion of quasispecies here on virology blog, you might be wondering exactly how many possible variants there are for a viral genome. The answer is quite simple: for a genome N nucleotides in length, there are 4N possible variants, because there are 4 different nucleotides. This is a huge …
