Amino Acid Substitutions Analysis of the Putative Epitopes of Neuraminidase Protein from Influenza A H1N1 Virus

Objective: This study verified whether the neuraminidase protein of Influenza A H1N1 virus sequence has modified from 2009–2017 and its impact on the 2018 Brazilian vaccine. Method: The reference neuraminidase protein sequence from H1N1 Puerto Rico/1934 strain was subjected to three different methods of epitope prediction and the top five from each method were aligned using Clustal omega, resulting in eight putative epitopes. These epitopes were aligned to 7,438 neuraminidase sequences spanning from 2009–2017 and analyzed for specific amino acid substitutions and counted. The resultant neuraminidase protein was aligned against the 2015 and 2018 neuraminidase proteins, from Influenza A H1N1 virus subtypes, used for vaccine production. Result: Twenty-one main substitutions were detected, of which 16/21 (76.2%) substitutions points remained stable and 1/21 (4.8%) returned to the original amino acid residue in the viral population from 2009–2017. Additionally, 19% (4/21) substitutions occurred in Brazil and worldwide in this period, indicating that changes in the neuraminidase viral population profile is time-dependent rather than geographical. Conclusion: The neuraminidase protein containing these amino acid substitutions is more closely related to the neuraminidase protein from influenza A/Michigan/45/2015 than A/California/7/2009, supporting the replacement of this virus subtype in the Brazilian vaccine in 2018.