Highly pathogenic (HP) H5N1 avian influenza has become endemic in several countries in Asia and Africa, and vaccination is being widely used as a control tool. However, there is a need for efficacious vaccines preferably utilizing a DIVA (differentiate infected from vaccinated animals) marker strategy to allow for improved surveillance of influenza in vaccinated poultry. Using a reverse genetic...

The H1N1 influenza virus is a serious threat to human population. Oseltamivir and Zanamivir are known antiviral drugs for swine flu with observed side effects. These drugs are viral neuraminidase and hemagglutinin inhibitor prevents early virus multiplication by blocking sialic acid cleavage on host cells. Therefore, it is of interest to identify naturally occurring novel compounds to control v...

Influenza A viruses (IAV) are a major burden for human health and thus the topic of intense research efforts. The entry IAV into host cells is particular interest as early infection steps ideal target intervention strategies. Here, we review recent key findings in field entry. Specifically, discuss identification novel receptors, emerging role viral neuraminidase entry, well progress from struc...

Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which originate in poultry upon transmission of low pathogenic viruses from wild birds, have occurred relatively frequently in the last decade. During our ongoing surveillance studies in wild birds, we isolated several influenza A viruses of hemagglutinin subtype H5 and H7 that contain various neuraminidase subtypes. For each of the recorde...

Until now, design of the annual influenza vaccine has relied on phylogenetic or whole-sequence comparisons of the viral coat proteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, with vaccine effectiveness assumed to correlate monotonically to the vaccine-influenza sequence difference. We use a theory from statistical mechanics to quantify the non-monotonic immune response that results from antigenic drift...

Influenza B viruses evolve more slowly than human influenza A, but no reasons for the difference have been established. We have analyzed sequence changes in the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase of influenza B viruses (and have determined four hemagglutinin sequences, of B/Bonn/43, B/USSR/100/83, B/Victoria/3/85, and B/Memphis/6/86) in relation to antigenic properties and compared these with simi...

During two winter seasons between 1999 and 2001, seven strains of influenza virus were isolated from healthy pigs in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. All isolates were identified as A (H1N2) reassortant viruses. Genetic and phylogenetic analyses indicated that they had classical swine-like hemagglutinin (HA) and internal genes, and relatively early human-like neuraminidase (NA) gene. The HA and NA ge...

Fifty-six Newcastle disease virus strains collected from 2000 to 2006 could be grouped into subgenotype VIId. However, they displayed cumulative mutations in and around the linear epitope of hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (residues 345 to 353) with time. The antigenicities of the variants that became predominant in Korea differ from each other and from the wild type.

Antigenic relationships between an isolate (B/Aichi/I/73) from the epidemic of influenza B in 1973 and earlier strains of the same type were studied by hemagglutination-inhibition and neuraminidase-inhibition tests. The results showed that B/Aichi/I/73 underwent considerable antigenic variation in hemagglutinin but not in neuraminidase.