Selection on haemagglutinin imposes a bottleneck during mammalian transmission of reassortant H5N1 influenza viruses

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Abstract

The emergence of human-transmissible H5N1 avian influenza viruses poses a major pandemic threat. H5N1 viruses are thought to be highly genetically diverse both among and within hosts; however, the effects of this diversity on viral replication and transmission are poorly understood. Here we use deep sequencing to investigate the impact of within-host viral variation on adaptation and transmission of H5N1 viruses in ferrets. We show that, although within-host genetic diversity in haemagglutinin (HA) increases during replication in inoculated ferrets, HA diversity is dramatically reduced upon respiratory droplet transmission, in which infection is established by only 1-2 distinct HA segments from a diverse source virus population in transmitting animals. Moreover, minor HA variants present in as little as 5.9% of viruses within the source animal become dominant in ferrets infected via respiratory droplets. These findings demonstrate that selective pressures acting during influenza virus transmission among mammals impose a significant bottleneck. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

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APA

Wilker, P. R., Dinis, J. M., Starrett, G., Imai, M., Hatta, M., Nelson, C. W., … Friedrich, T. C. (2013). Selection on haemagglutinin imposes a bottleneck during mammalian transmission of reassortant H5N1 influenza viruses. Nature Communications, 4. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3636

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