Question

A 65 year old patient enter the ER with exaggerated coldlike symptoms including headache, chills, high fever, sore throat, myalgia, and a cough. Answer the following questions related to this patient case:

1. What disease does this patient likely have?
2. Molecular testing is performed on the patients sputum sample and they are able to identify RNA fragments coding for hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Explain the role of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase in this viruses' infection cycle.
3. The testing identifies that this particular viral strain has hemagglutinin type 1 and neuraminidase type 9. How would you name this viral strain?
4. A DNA analysis is done to compare the viral strain isolated from the patient to viral strains isolated from patients from last several years. The comparison notes that there are minor changes in the H and N spikes of the strain isolated from the 65 year old patient as compared to samples from previous years. Would this be an example of antigenic drift or shift?
5. Explain, in detail, the difference between antigenic drift and shift

Answer 1

#The patient is likely to have vial infection or Flu

#The role of heamagglutinin and neuraminidase in the virus infection vucpw are

• The heamagglutinin ensures that the virus sticks to the cells after infecting it. It is attpe if glycoprotein usually found on the surface of the virus. This usually attaches to the cells of the host as a result the virus has a portal to entry.
• The neuraminidase role is to remove the most important glycoprotein called sialic acid on the cells.This acts as a receptor to the virion by binding and immobile it from entry into cells .They a patient as a progeny and can produce new virions to infect.

#The viral strain can be names as influenza A Heamagglutinin 1 with NA subtype as 9) as H1 N9

#Antigenic shift refers to complete formation of a new viral species after infection. Whereas viral drift is slight modification or mutation or changes occuring in the virus.As there is minor changes it is an example of antigenic drift.