Gene Mutation Caused 2009 H1N1 Virus Spread

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have found that a gene mutation was the reason behind the increased virulence of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus which resulted in a pandemic across the world. 'The H1N1 virus, Kawaoka explains, is really a combination of four different avian and swine flu viruses that have emerged over the past 90 years, and even includes genetic residue of the 1918 pandemic virus, an influenza that killed as many as 20 million people.' The University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Veterinary Medicine researchers identified the relocation of a specific amino acid in the gene matrix that enabled the virus to hijack host cells, a feat that triggered the recent pandemic." The World Health Organization's director general said H1N1 is likely to lose its status as a pandemic very soon.

Comments

As a flu researcher...

[Vornzog]

The linked summary article is so much technobabble. Slashdot is full of smart people who can handle a link to an open access journal article...

Go to http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1001034 to find out that the lack of a Lysine (K627) in the PB2 gene would normally prohibit this virus from replicating in humans, but is compensated for by the presence of a Arginine (R591) residue. These are both basic amino acids, and are located near each other on the structure. So, just a standard compensatory mutation - the sort of thing flu does all the time.

This is a nice bit of science, but it hardly explains the cause of the whole pandemic (this was a Franken-virus cobbled together from 4 other viruses). More science, less sensationalism, please!

Re:Pandemic?

[Red Flayer]

It's disingenuous to compare normal flu fatalities to the H1N1 fatality figures from last year. Especially since H1N1 was in addition to our normal flu fatalities.

All that media hype *did* have an effect... more people were vaccinated, more people stayed home when sick, more schools were closed during local outbreaks, etc.

Yes, I agree it was over-hyped. Mostly because the media corps knew that it wold sell copy and sell ads.

But you'd be pretty damn hard-pressed to show that the hype didn't save lives and improve productivity.

Another note:

According to the WHO report from August 6th the number of confirmed deaths was less than 20,000 (http://www.who.int/csr/don/2010_08_06/en/index.html).

No. The figures reported in that report are minimum figures. The CDC reported 8533 deaths confirmed due to H1N1 in the US; if you check that number with the CDC, they state that the actual number is likely FAR higher.

Re:It was clearly not a pandemic

[aristofanes]

search "The Times of India" for "swine flu"
You will find:
A: that there has been a 40% increase in swine flu cases recently.
B:that it requires 2 tests to confirm that a particular swab is swine flu rather than ordinary flu.
C: that the first test to establish that it is flu and not a common cold is cheap; but that the test to identify swine flu costs up to 5000 rupees (~$100)
D: that the second test is frequently not done and the results from the first test are assumed to be swine flu; which leads to a lot of false positives.
E: that some of the WHO experts had (have/) ties to pharma companies