M230I in H5N1 Swine In Indonesia
Recombinomics Commentary
October 3, 2007
The HA sequence of H5N1 in swine in Indonesia has been made public. It is the first public H5N1 sequence from swine outside of China. The isolate, A/Swine/Timka/BBVM186B/2007(H5N1), has typical Indonesian markers and is clearly clade 2.1. Its HA cleavage site is RERRRKKR, the consensus sequence for high path H5N1 in Asia. In Indonesia, the vast majority of human cases have the novel cleavage site, RESRRKKR, but those public sequences are largely from the Jakarta area. Tamik is in eastern Indonesia in Papua, near Papua New Guinea.
A notable acquisition in the HA sequence is M230I. This acquisition is also in recent chicken isolates in Papua as well as West Java. Therefore it is widespread, but has not yet been reported in human H5N1 from Indonesia. However, the most recent public human sequences from Indonesia were human cases in early January.
The presence of M230I in mammals is cause for concern. M230I is present in all three circulating strains of seasonal flu (H1N1, H3N2, influenza B), and has been seen in human H5N1 cases in Egypt (the Gharbiya cluster, which is the largest cluster to reported to date in Egypt).
The coding for the M230I in Indonesia has appeared in multiple H5N1 clades and sub-clades. It was first reported in Shantou in China in 2003. It then was found in clade 1 in Vietnam in 2005 as well as clade 2.3 in China. The first report in clade 2.2 was in an eagle owl in Germany in early 2006, which was followed by the Gharbiya cluster and poultry in Gharbiya in late 2006. The appearance of M230I in clade 2.2 in Indonesia was also in 2006.
The presence of M230I in H5N1 infected poultry and swine in Indonesia is a cause for concern as is the lack of sequence data on human cases in Indonesia in 2007.
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