Phylogenetic analysis of influenza B viruses in Qingdao from 2011 to 2018 / 中华微生物学和免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the molecular epidemiological characteristics of hemaggluti-nin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) of influenza B viruses (IBV) isolated in Qingdao from 2011 to 2018. Methods A total of 12236 samples of influenza-like cases in Qingdao from 2011 to 2018 were collected to extract viral RNAs. All samples were screened for influenza A viruses ( IAV) and IBV by one-step multiplex real-time RT-PCR. Lineages of IBV were identified. One hundred and eighty-two strains of IBV were select-ed to amplify HA and NA genes by RT-PCR and then analyzed by sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis and variation analysis of genes and amino acids were carried out. Results IBV was detected almost every year in Qingdao from 2011 to 2018. The positive rate was only slightly lower than that of IAV ( 4. 99％ vs 6. 21％). B/Victoria linkage had two prominent epidemic years (2011-2012, 2015-2016), while B/Yama-gata linkage had three (2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2017-2018). Most of the infected people were children un-der 10 years old, and the people infected with the two lineages had similar age characteristics. Phylogenetic analysis of HA genes showed clusters in Victoria clades of 1A and 1B and Yamagata clades of 2 and 3. IBV of Yamagata lineage had more amino acid mutation sites than those of Victoria lineage in HA genes with grea-ter genetic diversity. The B/Yamagata strains had 12 amino acid mutations and the B/Victoria strains had seven in four major epitopes. In the receptor binding sites, two amino acid mutations were detected in the B/Yamagata strains and three in the B/Victoria strains. In Qingdao, 26 strains of IBV were intra-lineage reas-sortments, mostly of the B/Victoria lineage, and 23 strains were inter-lineage reassortments, mostly between HA-B/Yamagata and NA-B/Victoria strains. A possible resistant strain to NA inhibitor was found. Conclu-sions The significance of IBV in seasonal influenza should not be neglected. Amino acid substitution, in-sertion/deletion and gene reassortment were the main strategies for the natural evolution of IBV. Influenza surveillance was of great importance and influenza vaccine strains needed to be updated in time.