Molecular distribution of amino acid substitutions on neuraminidase from the 2009 (H1N1) human influenza pandemic virus

BACK TO CONTENTS | PDF | PREVIOUS | NEXT

Title	Molecular distribution of amino acid substitutions on neuraminidase from the 2009 (H1N1) human influenza pandemic virus
Authors	Miguel Quiliano^1,2, Hugo Valdivia-Olarte¹, Carlos Olivares^1,3, David Requena¹, Andrés H. Gutiérrez¹, Paola Reyes-Loyola⁴, Luis E. Tolentino-Lopez⁴, Patricia Sheen¹, Verónica Briz⁵, Maria A Muñoz-Fernández⁵, José Correa-Basurto⁴ & Mirko Zimic¹*
Affiliation	¹Laboratorio de Bioinformática y Biología Molecular, Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Av. Honorio Delgado, 430. SMP. Lima, Peru; ²Drug R&D Unit, Center for Applied Pharmacobiology Research, University of Navarra, C/ Irunlarrea s/n, 31008, Pamplona, Spain; ³Department of Physics, PUC-Rio, Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225, Gávea - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; ⁴Laboratorio de Modelado Molecular y Bioinformática de la Escuela Superior de Medicina, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México. Plan de San Luis Y Diaz Mirón S/N, Col. Casco de Santo Tomas, Mexico city, México; ⁵Laboratorio de Inmunobiología Molecular, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, España, CIBER BBN, Madrid, Spain
Email	mirko.zimic@upch.pe or mzimic@jhsph.edu; *Corresponding author
Article Type	Hypothesis
Date	Received May 07, 2013; Accepted May 08, 2013; Published July 17, 2013
Abstract	The pandemic influenza AH1N1 (2009) caused an outbreak of human infection that spread to the world. Neuraminidase (NA) is an antigenic surface glycoprotein, which is essential to the influenza infection process, and is the target of anti-flu drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir. Currently, NA inhibitors are the pillar pharmacological strategy against seasonal and global influenza. Although mutations observed after NA-inhibitor treatment are characterized by changes in conserved amino acids of the enzyme catalytic site, it is possible that specific amino acid substitutions (AASs) distant from the active site such as H274Y, could confer oseltamivir or zanamivir resistance. To better understand the molecular distribution pattern of NA AASs, we analyzed NA AASs from all available reported pandemic AH1N1 NA sequences, including those reported from America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and specifically from Mexico. The molecular distributions of the AASs were obtained at the secondary structure domain level for both the active and catalytic sites, and compared between geographic regions. Our results showed that NA AASs from America, Asia, Europe, Oceania and Mexico followed similar molecular distribution patterns. The compiled data of this study showed that highly conserved amino acids from the NA active site and catalytic site are indeed being affected by mutations. The reported NA AASs follow a similar molecular distribution pattern worldwide. Although most AASs are distributed distantly from the active site, this study shows the emergence of mutations affecting the previously conserved active and catalytic site. A significant number of unique AASs were reported simultaneously on different continents.
Keywords	Influenza, Pandemic H1N1 (2009), Neuraminidase, Molecular distribution pattern, Geographic regions, amino acid substitution.
Citation	Quiliano et al. Bioinformation 9(13): 673-679 (2013)
Edited by	P Kangueane
ISSN	0973-2063
Publisher	Biomedical Informatics
License	This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.