COMPARISON OF NEURAMINIDASE ACTIVITY OF INFLUENZA A VIRUS SUBTYPE H5N1 AND H1N1 USING REVERSE GENETICS VIRUS

Neuraminidase (NA) is an envelope surface glycoprotein of influenza A viruses. It cleaves α-(2,3) or α-(2,6) glycosidic linkage between a terminal sialic acid residue of the host cell receptor and hemagglutinin of the viral envelope, thus releasing viral progeny from the infected cell. In this study, a reassortant virus (H1N1-NA-H5N1) containing the NA gene from A/duck/Phitsanulok/ NIAH6-5-0001/2007 (H5N1) virus and seven remaining genetic segments from A/ Puerto Rico/8/1934 (H1N1) was constructed using reverse genetic technique. NA activity of H1N1-NA-H5N1 virus was lower than that of A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 (H1N1), and NA activity of A/duck/Phitsanulok/NIAH6-5-0001/2007 study (H5N1) was the lowest among them (p < 0.05). To our knowledge, this is the first compara- tive study of NA activity of H1N1 and H5N1 virus using reverse genetic tech- nique. It also indicates that the NA gene may be expressed at a higher level in the H1N1 infected cell than the H5N1 infected cell.