PREreviews of “Potential pandemic risk of circulating swine H1N2 influenza viruses”

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Potential pandemic risk of circulating swine H1N2 influenza viruses

by Valerie Le Sage, Nicole C. Rockey, Kevin R. McCarthy, Andrea J. French, Meredith J. Shephard, Ryan McBride, Jennifer E. Jones, Sydney G. Walter, Joshua D. Doyle, Lingqing Xu, Dominique J. Barbeau, Shengyang Wang, Sheila A. Frizzell, Lora H. Rigatti, Michael M. Myerburg, James C. Paulson, Anita K. McElroy, Tavis K. Anderson, Amy L. Vincent Baker, and Seema S. Lakdawala

Posted: January 6, 2024
Server: bioRxiv
DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.05.574401

Abstract

Influenza A viruses in swine have considerable genetic diversity and continue to pose a pandemic threat to humans. They were the source of the most recent influenza pandemic, and since 2010, novel swine viruses have spilled over into humans more than 400 times in the United States. Although these zoonotic infections generally result in mild illness with limited onward human transmission, the potential for sustained transmission of an emerging influenza virus between individuals due to lack of population level immunity is of great concern. Compiling the literature on pandemic threat assessment, we established a pipeline to characterize and triage influenza viruses for their pandemic risk and examined the pandemic potential of two widespread swine origin viruses. Our analysis revealed that a panel of human sera collected from healthy adults in 2020 has no cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies against an α-H1 clade strain but do against a γ-H1 clade strain. Swine H1N2 virus from the α-H1 clade (α-swH1N2) replicated efficiently in human airway cultures and exhibited phenotypic signatures similar to the human H1N1 pandemic strain from 2009 (H1N1pdm09). Furthermore, α-swH1N2 was capable of efficient airborne transmission to both naïve ferrets and ferrets with prior seasonal influenza immunity. Ferrets with H1N1pdm09 pre-existing immunity had reduced α-swH1N2 viral shedding from the upper respiratory tract and cleared the infection faster. Despite this, H1N1pdm09-immune ferrets that became infected via the air could still onward transmit α-swH1N2 with an efficiency of 50%. Taken together, these results indicate that this α-swH1N2 strain has a higher pandemic potential, but a moderate level of impact since there is reduced replication fitness in animals with prior immunity.

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PREreview by S. Chan Baek of the HHMI Transparent and Accountable Peer Review Training Pilot

Authored by S. Chan Baek of the HHMI Transparent and Accountable Peer Review Training Pilot

Summary
This study provides a framework for assessing the pandemic potentials of swine influenza viruses and showcases it with two circulating swine flu viruses. Various in vitro assays examined their fitness within the human respiratory tract. Transmission potency was also investigated using…

Read the PREreview by S. Chan Baek of the HHMI Transparent and Accountable Peer Review Training Pilot

PREreviews of Potential pandemic risk of circulating swine H1N2 influenza viruses

1 PREreview

Summary