Hemagglutinin sequence clusters and the antigenic evolution of influenza A virus.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Plotkin JB
PROVIDER: S-EPMC122937 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Hemagglutinin sequence clusters and the antigenic evolution of influenza A virus.
Plotkin Joshua B JB Dushoff Jonathan J Levin Simon A SA
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20020423 9
Continual mutations to the hemagglutinin (HA) gene of influenza A virus generate novel antigenic strains that cause annual epidemics. Using a database of 560 viral RNA sequences, we study the structure and tempo of HA evolution over the past two decades. We detect a critical length scale, in amino acid space, at which HA sequences aggregate into clusters, or swarms. We investigate the spatio-temporal distribution of viral swarms and compare it to the time series of the influenza vaccines recomme ...[more]
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