Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 2 February 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5812, p. 569
DOI: 10.1126/science.315.5812.569i
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

This Week in Science

Figure 1 Transmission between hosts is a crucial choke point in viral evolution--viral fitness is measured by transmission. Tumpey et al. (p. 655; see the news story by Enserink ) now show that one or two amino acid substitutions in influenza hemagglutinin that modify its sialic acid linkage specificity from mammalian to avian greatly reduce transmissibility of a recombinant 1918 influenza A virus in ferrets. This implies that hemagglutinin receptor specificity in this pandemic strain plays an essential role in influenza virus transmission.

CREDIT: TUMPEY ET AL.




To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)