全球傳染性的高致病性禽流感已變成全球關注的議題。近日，傳向亞洲、非洲及歐洲的病毒對家禽及人類健康都造成了巨大的影響。越來越多的人類感染到病毒並且死亡。倘若 H5N1 流感病毒持續的突變或是與其他亞種病毒混合突變，以改變牠與受體結合的能力，使得病毒演變成具有人類傳染人類的能力，那將會是場大災難。 血球凝集素 (Hemagglutinin) 是流感病毒中負責將病毒和細胞結合的表面醣蛋白。血球凝集素上發生突變，可能改變病毒與受體結合的能力，轉變成容易和人類受體結合。本文中，我們找出了在血球凝集素上有鑑別力的特徵，並且顯示這些特徵在人類宿主及鳥類宿主上的差異。 The global spread of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has become a worldwide concerned issue. Recently, the spread of virus into Asia, Africa, Europe has resulted in immense effects not only on the poultry industry but human health problem. More and more people get infected and died. If the H5N1 virus continually mutate itself or recombine with other types of influenza viruses to adapt its receptor binding properties and acquire ability to transmit from human to human, it will be a serious disaster. Hemagglutinin (HA) is the surface glycoprotein, and it is responsible for binding the virus to cell. Mutations on HA protein sequences may change the receptor binding preference from avian to human. In this study, we identify some discriminative features of HA protein sequence for each clade and demonstrate difference of amino acid composition on these features.
