陈继明2万个基因序列绘制A型流感发育图谱

　　

生物通综合，东北大学兽医学院，中国动物卫生与流行病学中心的研究人员在最近一期的PloS One上发表A型流感发育图谱研究成果，文章标题：Panorama Phylogenetic Diversity and Distribution of Type A Influenza Virus。

 

2008年，中国动物卫生与流行病学中心研究人员陈继明带领一个团队，用了4个多月的时间，动用6台计算机，分析了GenBank中存在的23000个基因序列，同时参考了400多篇关于流感病毒的研究论文，在国际上首次描绘了流感病毒HA基因的发育图谱和NA基因的发育图谱。

 

在接受科学时报采访时，陈继明说：“作为一个流感病毒研究者，在国际上首次画出这样的全景图，此生已无遗憾，同时也非常高兴这个全景图已经在这次全球抗击人类出现的流感新疫情发挥了重要作用。”

 

美国在公布这次北美毒株的序列后数小时内，陈继明的研究小组就准确地把它所有的基因都界定为猪流感病毒的基因，但是来自不同的猪流感病毒的基因，否定了国外有关方面认为北美毒株是禽流感病毒、猪流感病毒和人流感病毒的“杂合体”之说。陈继明的研究小组结论和美国疾病控制中心最早的学术报告，以及4月30日国际传染病学会公布的专家小组的分析结果是完全一致的。

 

陈继明介绍：“有关方面之所以认为北美毒株是禽流感病毒、猪流感病毒和人流感病毒的‘杂合体’之说，就是因为他们参考的是一些‘局部图’，而不是全景图。借助这些全景图，专家还准确界定了中国近年来各个实验室分离到的猪流感病毒在家族中的位置，肯定了中国猪群中存在的一些猪流感病毒都是普通的猪流感病毒，从未发现北美的新毒株。这些结果为农业部准确研判疫情形势、确定猪群流感的监测重点地区以及研制有关的检测试剂提供了重要的参考依据。”

 

据了解，应墨西哥等有关专家的邀请，陈继明研究组将公布他们在制作全景图过程中产生的一些详细而庞大的数据，以便为有关方面提供更具体的参考信息。

 

生物通推荐原文阅读：Panorama Phylogenetic Diversity and Distribution of Type A Influenza Virus

Background

Type A influenza virus is one of important pathogens of various animals, including humans, pigs, horses, marine mammals and birds. Currently, the viral type has been classified into 16 hemagglutinin and 9 neuraminidase subtypes, but the phylogenetic diversity and distribution within the viral type largely remain unclear from the whole view.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The panorama phylogenetic trees of influenza A viruses were calculated with representative sequences selected from approximately 23000 candidates available in GenBank using web servers in NCBI and the software MEGA 4.0. Lineages and sublineages were classified according to genetic distances, topology of the phylogenetic trees and distributions of the viruses in hosts, regions and time.

Conclusions/Significance

Here, two panorama phylogenetic trees of type A influenza virus covering all the 16 hemagglutinin subtypes and 9 neuraminidase subtypes, respectively, were generated. The trees provided us whole views and some novel information to recognize influenza A viruses including that some subtypes of avian influenza viruses are more complicated than Eurasian and North American lineages as we thought in the past. They also provide us a framework to generalize the history and explore the future of the viral circulation and evolution in different kinds of hosts. In addition, a simple and comprehensive nomenclature system for the dozens of lineages and sublineages identified within the viral type was proposed, which if universally accepted, will facilitate communications on the viral evolution, ecology and epidemiology.