Browsing by Author "Hu, Wei"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Characterization of asian and north American avian H5N1
    (Scientific Research Publishing, 2011-07) Hu, Wei
    Since the emerge of the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 virus in Asia in 1996, the possibility for this virus to cross species barriers to infect humans and its ability to cause large outbreaks in birds have been a public health concern. This virus has been spreading from Asia to Europe and Africa by migratory birds with North America as its next possible stop. In this study, an ensemble of computational techniques including Random Forests, Informational Spectrum Method, Entropy, and Mutual Information were employed to unravel the distinct characteristics of Asian and North American avian H5N1 in comparison with human and swine H5N1. Critical differences were identified in the HA cleavage and binding sites, the HA receptor selection, the interaction patterns of HA and NA, and NP, PA, PB1, and PB2, and the important sites in the influenza proteins including HA, NA, M1, M2, NS1, NS2, NP, PA, PB1, PB1-F2, and PB2.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Codon bias of influenza a viruses and their hosts
    (Scientific Research Publishing, 2011-10) Fancher, Keli C.; Hu, Wei
    The Influenza A virus remains an annual and worldwide health concern due to its fast evolutionary rate. There are two major forms of Influenza evolution: drift, caused by mutations, and shift, which results from the exchange of genetic information between two gene segments. Using six synonymous codon usage bias indexes (GC content, ENC, SCUO, Codon Volatility, RSCU, and Odds Ratio), this study revealed the evolutionary drift patterns in the Influenza A viruses of avian, human, and swine origins as well as those of their hosts. We found that the variation of GC content across the 11 genes in Influenza A uniquely determines the viral origins in avian, human, and swine hosts. As was previously noticed in the Flaviviridae virus, a codon’s RSCU value of the Influenza viruses is positively correlated to the Odds Ratio of the dinucleotides contained within that codon. Additionally, the RSCU values of avian, human, and swine viruses and their corresponding hosts are similar, which is also true of Odds Ratio. Furthermore, the GC content, ENC, SCUO, and Codon Volatility are similar across the avian, human, and swine hosts; however, the RSCU and Odds Ratio of the hosts are distinct. Our findings expanded the knowledge on codon bias of Influenza viruses and their hosts.