ABSTRACT
Objective@#To understand the epidemiological characteristics of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus in Sichuan population during the monitoring period of 2018-2019, and to clarify the antigenic variation, the gene characteristics and the matching of current epidemic strains, vaccine strains, representative strains at home and abroad.@*Methods@#A total of 118 strains of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus isolated in Sichuan region influenza network laboratory from April 2018 to March 2019 were selected. The hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay was conducted for antigen analysis. The HA and NA genes of 16 strains with low-response strains were sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis and amino acid locus variation analysis were applied using BioEdit and MEGA5.0 software.@*Results@#The result of the antigen analysis demonstrated that more than 95% of the A(H1N1) pdm09 influenza viruses detected were similar to the WHO recommended vaccine strain A/Michigan/45/2015. The analysis of HA gene characteristics showed that some low-response strains had amino acid site variation in the Sa, Sb and Cb regions of the HA protein. A total of 15 low-response strains belonged to the 6B.1 branch. And their evolutionary relationship were close to the representative strains A/beijin-xicheng/SWL1633/2018 and A/brisbane/02/2018, which were popular at home and abroad. Compared with A/sichuan/1/2009, there are mutations involving 6, 14 and 1 amino acid sites in the antigen-determining regions (Sa, Sb, Ca and Cb), non-determined regions and receptor binding site(RBS) respectively. No amino acid site mutations related to resistance to NA gene were found.@*Conclusions@#In 2018-2019, the epidemic A(H1N1) pdm09 influenza virus in Sichuan is consistent with the global epidemic characteristics, which also matched with vaccine strains recommended by WHO in the northern hemisphere. Compared with A/sichuan/1/2009 which was the first isolated in China in 2009, there were amino acid sites mutations in antigen-determining region and receptor binding site of the HA protein, and the transmembrane region of the NA protein, drug and antibody binding sites.