Study identifies potential for pandemic flu viruses

Circulating avian influenza viruses were recently shown to have genetic similarities to the pandemic Spanish flu virus of 1918, which resulted in an estimated 40 million deaths. A team of researchers led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Yoshihiro Kawaoke used public databases to identify eight genes from influenza viruses isolated from wild ducks that were similar to the 1918 flu virus. The research, published in Cell Host & Microbe, shows that a future pandemic could potentially be caused by gene pools found in nature. The team used reverse genetic methods to generate a virus similar to the 1918 virus, with only a 3 percent difference in the amino acids that make the virus proteins. The engineered virus was shown to be more pathogenic than the ordinary avian flu virus in mice and ferrets. It was, however, not as pathogenic as the 1918 virus and did not transmit in ferrets via respiratory droplets, as...