A novel strategy for exploring the reassortment origins of newly emerging influenza virus

Abstract

In early 2009, new swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus emerged in Mexico and the United States. The emerging influenza virus had made global influenza pandemic for nearly one year. To every emerging pathogen, exploring the origin sources is vital for viral control and clearance. Influenza virus is different from other virus in that it has 8 segments, making the segment reassortment a main drive in virus evolution. In exploring reassortment evolution origins of a newly emerging influenza virus, integrated comparing of the origin sources of all the segments is necessary. If some segments have high homologous with one parental strain, lower homologous with another parental strain, while other segments are reverse, can we proposed that this emerging influenza virus may re-assort from the two parental strains. Here we try to explore the multilevel reassortment evolution origins of 2009 H1N1 influenza virus using this method. By further validating the fidelity of this strategy, this method might be useful in judging the reassortment origins of newly emerging influenza virus.