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Commentary
Fujian
/ Qinghai H5N1 Recombinant At Qinghai Lake
Recombinomics
Commentary 21:50
May 8, 2010
However, the recent sequences included obvious recombinants. The Qinghai Lake sequence was Fujian with extensive areas at the 5’ end of the gene which matched clade 2.2.1 sequences in Egypt. Similarly, the sequences in Egypt were clade 2.2.1 which acquired Fujian polymorphisms, including the Fujian HA cleavage site in one of the 2008 Egyptian isolates, A/chicken/Egypt/36-4/2008.
The recombination evidence extended beyond the two isolates with extensive recombination. Shorter regions involving two or three consecutive polymorphisms were common in the Egyptian sequences from Harbin (see here). Moreover shared single nucleotide polymorphism were frequent found in Qinghai and Fujian sequences (see examples here), including S125L (see list here).
These data provide compelling evidence for frequent recombination between diverse H5N1 sequences, which represents the dominant driving force behind influenza evolution, and greatly reduces the role of random mutations in genetic drift.
This paradigm shift will have a major impact on vaccine selection and the understanding of evolution.
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