Cooperating H3N2 Influenza Virus Variants Are Not Detectable in Primary Clinical Samples.

ABSTRACT: The high mutation rates of RNA viruses lead to rapid genetic diversification, which can enable cooperative interactions between variants in a viral population. We previously described two distinct variants of H3N2 influenza virus that cooperate in cell culture. These variants differ by a single mutation, D151G, in the neuraminidase protein. The D151G mutation reaches a stable frequency of about 50% when virus is passaged in cell culture. However, it is unclear whether selection for the cooperative benefits of D151G is a cell culture phenomenon or whether the mutation is also sometimes present at appreciable frequency in virus populations sampled directly from infected humans. Prior work has not detected D151G in unpassaged clinical samples, but those studies have used methods like Sanger s

SUBMITTER: Xue KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5750391 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature