Influenza

Biography

Biography: Gloria Ramirez-Nieto

Abstract

In Colombia, swine influenza virus has been present for over forty years, but only until recently viral isolation of classic and pandemic H1N1 swine influenza viruses demonstrated co-circulation of these viruses in the swine population from the main swine producing regions of the country. There was a clear predominance of the pandemic H1N1 subtype after the 2009 pandemic, but a lack of knowledge about the molecular changes at the virus level due to the appearance of this novel virus in a naïve non-vaccinated population. In this study an analysis of the variability at the nucleotide and amino acid level of the sequence of the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes of swine influenza viruses reported in Colombia between 2008-2013, was performed. The main focus was to look for changes of evolutionary significance, and phylogenetic trees were constructed accordingly to establish evolutionary relationships with swine influenza virus reported worldwide. Analysis of the HA and NA genes of the Colombian H1N1 swine influenza viruses showed that these were closely related to American and Asian strains. Molecular analysis revealed changes representing synonymous and non-synonymous mutations, and the changes that were associated with non-synonymous mutations, have not yet been reported as a cause of change in the antigenicity of these proteins so far. The positions in the sequences of HA and NA with evolutionary significance, were related to differences associated with the affinity and avidity for the recognition of different conformation of sialic acid receptors in the host cells.