Study on the correlation of human influenza A/H3N2 hemagglutinin gene variation and the epidemic from 1995 to 2005 in China / 病毒学报

ABSTRACT

To study the correlation of human influenza A/H3N2 hemagglutinin gene variation and the epidemic from 1995 to 2005 in China, 550 HA1 sequences of H3N2 viruses isolated in China were analyzed with phylogenetic tree. The results showed that the evolution of HA1 represented a long trunk with short side branches. The animo acid changes of HA1 mostly located at the antigenic sites or aside of them, but also may occur at the other sites simultaneously. The analysis also showed three possibilities of HA1 variation to cause H3N2 epidemic, the first is multiple site mutations happened simultaneously; the second is mutation sites happened gradually and then accumulated to multiple sites; the third is a single antigenic site mutation occurred simultaneously with the receptor binding site variation.