The virus is said to contain genes from avian, swine, and human influenza A. How could a hybrid like this have happened? What events could have occurred to allow the reassortment of such genes?
Hi Sarah,
this rare event is the result of two factors:
1) Influenza is a pathogen present in many species (birds, pig, human, etc.)
2) Proximity of those species (like on farms, etc.) can allow for a human or else to be infected by two different virus at once (a swine virus and a human virus) or by another FLU species (human infected by swine flu, etc.)
This results in an antigenic SHIFT that is caused by genetic re-assortment when two subtypes infect a host simultaneously or arising out of direct transmission from birds or other animals to humans.
As an example, the 2009 H1N1 was the result of a pig infected simultaneously/sequentially) by human, porcine and Swine FLU and that was transmitted back into humans.
The attached publication gives a good overview of the process. I have also attached a slide from a powerpoint presentation on influenza.
Best,
Nicolas
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0904322#t=article
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/change.htm
The attached paper by Gavin Smith et al. has a nice explanation. This is really impressive work because the HiN1 virus was first noted only in March-April of 2009 and they had all this analysis done and accepted for publication by June 2009.
Thank you Brian and Nicolas! This will certainly help me with my research paper.
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