The findings are based on an analysis of samples collected in Europe during the 1918 pandemic, which was the most serious respiratory pandemic of the 20th century and killed between 50 and 100 million people.
The researchers discovered mutations in the composition of the virus (H1N1) or swine flu may have helped him adapt better to the human host, according to the British newspaper, “Daily Mail”.
The international team from the Robert Koch Institute, the University of Leuven and Sharett Berlin revealed more details about H1N1’s biology, as well as evidence of its spread between continents.
Lead researcher Sebastian Kalviniak Spencer, an evolutionary biologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, and colleagues analyzed 13 lung samples from different individuals stored in the historical archives of museums in Germany and Austria, collected between 1901 and 1931, including six samples collected in 1918 and 1919.
From those lung samples, researchers were able to develop a complete influenza genome from a sample collected in Munich in 1918, in addition to two partial influenza genomes collected in Berlin in the same year.
The researchers believe that the genetic differences between the samples correspond to a combination of local transmission and long-distance dispersal events.
They compared the genomes before and after the peak of the epidemic, which suggests that there is variation in a specific gene linked to resistance to antiviral responses and that may have enabled the virus to adapt to humans.
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