NIH R01 · 2024
Dissecting the viral and host constraints that govern influenza virus antigenic evolution
Abstract Seasonal influenza A viruses (IAV) cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year, despite widespread pre- exposure and vaccination. IAV persists in the human population by continually evolving resistance to herd immunity through a process known as antigenic drift. The evolutionary potential of RNA viruses like IAV is often considered enormous due to their rapid replication and high mutation rates. In reality, the evolutionary potential of IAV is highly constrained by the need to maintain a wide array of molecular functionality in a tiny genome. The specific constraints limiting IAV evolution are very poorly characterized and defining them is critical for understanding and…
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