Recombinomics SNP Aggregation at Nature Precedings
Recombinomics Commentary
August 16, 2007
Recombinomics has begun submitting papers to Nature's new site, Nature Precedings. The site allows papers to be viewed by the scientific community, if accepted by Nature's professional curators.
The site also allows for comments and voting (both require log in after registration, which is free). Thus, the papers are "open access". No Nature subscription is required to download the papers (or vote or comment).
Recombinomics first paper, "Swine Influenza A Evolution via Recombination - Genetic Drift Reservoir" is available at Nature (where it can be downloaded).
Recombinomics second paper, "H5N1 Concurrent Acquisition of a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism in Diverse Influenza Clade 2.2 Sub-clades" is now also available at the site.
Recombinaomics third paper, "Aggregation of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in a Human H5N1 Clade 2.2 Hemagglutinin" is also now avaqilable at the site.
These papers will significantly impact the two basic tenets of influenza genetics, drift via "random mutation" and shift via reassortment.
The second paper describes the concurrent detection of NA G743A in three countries, Russia, Egypt, and Ghana. This polymorphism was appended onto six different genetic backgrounds, which is difficult to explain by “random mutations”.
The latest paper compliments the "Concurrent" paper. This "Aggregation" paper characterizes the newly acquired 14 single nucleotide polymorphisms aggregated onto the same human HA sequence from Nigeria. This is the first human sequence from western Africa and 13 of the 14 polymorphisms are on earlier clade 2.2 sequences. Moreover, six of these polymorphisms are regional markers for Germany, Egypt, and sub-Sahara Africa (see Figures 1A, 1B, 1C). Thus instead of dispersing a single polymorphisms onto multiple gentic backgrounds, the current examples describes polymorphisms from multiple genetic backgrounds aggregating onto a single HA gene (see Figure 2).
Recombination involving acquisition of H5N1 sequences from migratory birds, and appending the polymorphisms onto resident H5N1 genetic backgrounds straightforwardly explains the data. The polymorphism tracing used to identify these changes, as well as others, including the changes in or near the HA receptor binding domain, V223I and M230I, can be used to develop vaccine targets in advance of the detection of the polymorphisms on new genetic backgrounds.
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Recombinomics' Paper at Nature Precedings