An Approach for Molecular and Biological Characterizations of Virulent Influenza A Viruses

Abstract

We propose an approach based on a combination of physical, chemical, and mathematical methods to identify and characterize virulent influenza A viruses (IAVs) through the analysis of the hemagglutinin protein. These methods include the isoelectric point, extreme value theory, and tree-like classification. The characterization process involves molecular and biological aspects. This procedure was applied to an IAV sample that included strains related to known influenza pandemics. The results provided clear position and amino acid pairs that identify these virulent viruses. These results show that our approach is promising to contribute new methodologies to identify and characterize virulent IAVs.