Question

Explain the role that genetic reassortment has played in the evolution of influenza A virus, and in producing pandemic strains of the virus.

Answer 1

Reassortment in virus is a great genetic diversification /

· .Mutation or mixing of genetic material of a species into new recombination different individual is known as reassortment

· Viruses with segmented genome that is a segment of RNA have another mechanism of generating diversity

· Usually influenza virus infects a cell of individual RNA ,enter into the nucleus get copied many times and exported into cytoplasm to form new virus particles

· When a cell is infected by two different influenza virus the RNA of both the viruses copy and so the progeny in share both the strains which comes from parent this is known as reassortant

· It occurs between the same type so why influenza A virus never exchange RNA segment with influenza B and C virus because of packaging mechanism that ensures that each influenza virus contains at least one copy of each RNA segment

· One example of evolutionary importance of reassortment is the exchange of RNA segment between humans and animals gave rise to discovery of novel coronavirus .

· In 2020 coronavirus is reassortment of SARS, CoV HKU1,2004HCoV