Rhiza Labs FluTracker Forum

Please don't mention Kansas and pandemic swine flu together.

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I am not a doctor, virologist, or any of type of medical/life sciences professional.

I am a layman with a background in the physical sciences.

Thank you.

So that implies that virulence will increase, probably resulting in higher viral loads, and the associated change in mortality will then depend more or less on whether that fixing promotes deeper lung penetration via a mixture with D225G? So if no association occurs, the virus may become milder. But if an association occurs, pretty much all hell could conceivably break loose?

I believe you mentioned previously that D225G might become a prominent player. If that becomes true, and a mixture occurs with E627K, I would imagine that would set the stage for a near worst-case scenario. Am I way off the mark?

They were together in 1918.

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www.twitter.com/hniman

Lovely...

What sort of significant changes?

can someone access
http://mbio.asm.org/mbio00067-10v1.pdf

I only get an empty page

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no patents on genes, publish the GISAID sequences !

The file is large (12MB) and about 25 pages long. It takes a while to load, just be patient. Looks interesting and will take a peak later.

The PB2 E627K Mutation Attenuates Viruses Containing the 2009
H1N1 Influenza Pandemic Polymerase

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Praemonitus, Praemunitus..Forewarned is Forearmed.

Changing PB2 to E627K did not increase replication of CA/04/09, but changing the 1918 virus from E627K to E627 reduced virus.

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www.twitter.com/hniman

The paper is an artificial system that says little about pandemic H1N1. The finding that E627K reduces levels of the rescued reassortant, even though E627K is found in the patients in India indicates the experimental results are not applicable to pandemic H1N1.

Here is the key quote from the paper:

We show that in both A549 cell culture and in a mouse model of influenza infection, two of these
changes, PB2-E627K and –D701N, do not potentiate the replication or virulence of a virus
containing the 2009 pandemic RNP. Rather, both of these changes significantly impair the
replication of the virus and diminish the histopathological consequences of infection. Our
findings suggest that if the 2009 pandemic virus were to acquire these changes, greater virulence
would be an unlikely consequence.

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www.twitter.com/hniman

On a related note re India:

From what I have read, there are more similarities with the current pandemic swine flu and Spanish Flu, than either of the two later pandemics.

From memory, a nasty wave in India occurred at the same time as one in the USA during the Spanish Flu. India could be useful to watch.