Swiss researchers sequence genome of 1918 Spanish flu virus

Spanish flu: virus genome deciphered a century later Keystone-SDA

Researchers from the Universities of Basel and Zurich (UZH) have sequenced the genome of the Spanish flu virus, thanks to a sample taken from an 18-year-old Swiss boy who died in the city on the Limmat in 1918, when the pandemic spread around the world.

The international team of scientists – led by palaeogenetics expert Verena Schünemann from the University of Basel – discovered three key mutations that allowed the virus to adapt to host cells at an early stage of its spread, UZH writes today.

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Two of these mutations made the pathogen more resistant to the human immune system, while another mutation increased the virus’ ability to bind with cell receptors making it more infectious.

In order to sequence the remnants of this ‘historical’ RNA virus – characteristic of the flu – the researchers used an innovative technique, which in the future will also make it possible to reconstruct other genomes of ‘ancient’ viruses and thus better understand the course of pandemics.

“A better understanding of the dynamics of how viruses adapt to humans during a pandemic over a long period of time enables us to develop models for future pandemics,” Schünemann summarises.

The sample of the 18-year-old who died in Switzerland during the Spanish flu – which claimed millions of lives worldwide between 1918 and 1920 – was until now kept in the UZH Medical Collection, which plays a central role in palaeogenetics. However, even today the potential of these specimens remains rather underused, explain the authors of the study.

Adapted from Italian by DeepL/ac

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