100-year-old pandemic flu viruses yield new genomes

Nelson, Martha I.; Ghedin, Elodie

doi:10.1038/d41586-022-01741-9

NEWS AND VIEWS
06 July 2022

100-year-old pandemic flu viruses yield new genomes

Lung samples housed in medical archives have yielded three genomes for the influenza A virus that caused the 1918 global pandemic. The sequences reveal mutations that might have triggered the pandemic’s devastating second wave.

Martha I. Nelson
1. Martha I. Nelson is in the Computational Biology Branch, National Center for Biotechnology Information, Division of Intramural Research, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
View author publications

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Elodie Ghedin
1. Elodie Ghedin is in the Systems Genomics Section, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, Division of Intramural Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
View author publications

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Access through your institution

Buy or subscribe

The last time a mysterious respiratory virus brought the world to its knees was in 1918, when a pandemic caused by an influenza A H1N1 virus spread around the globe. The evolutionary steps taken by that H1N1 virus are of particular interest today, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. To investigate the virus’s evolution, Patrono et al.¹ scoured museum archives in Europe for century-old lung samples containing RNA from the 1918 virus. Writing in Nature Communications, the researchers describe the fruits of their labour — genome sequences for three 1918 H1N1 viruses. Their work suggests that the 1918 flu virus acquired mutations during the first wave of the pandemic in the Northern Hemisphere’s spring of 1918 that might explain why the second wave in autumn was so deadly.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 607, 244-245 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01741-9

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the National Institutes of Health or Department of Health and Human Services.

References

Patrono, L. V et al. Nature Commun. 13, 2314 (2022).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Taubenberger, J. K. et al. Nature 437, 889–893 (2005).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Tumpey, T. M. et al. Science 310, 77–80 (2005).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Xiao, Y.-L. et al. J. Pathol. 229, 535–545 (2013).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Reid, A. H. et al. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 9, 1249–1253 (2003).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Taubenberger, J. K. & Morens, D. M. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 12, 15–22 (2006).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Worobey, M., Han, G.-Z. & Rambaut, A. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 8107–8112 (2014).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Winter, G., Fields, S. & Brownlee, G. G. Nature 292, 72–75 (1981).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Worobey, M., Han, G.-Z. & Rambaut, A. Nature 508, 254–257 (2014).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Viboud, C. et al. J. Infect. Dis. 207, 721–729 (2013).
PubMed Article Google Scholar
Miller, M. A., Viboud, C., Balinska, M. & Simonsen, L. N. Engl. J. Med. 360, 2595–2598 (2009).
PubMed Article Google Scholar