Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27571422›Full record

ArticlePLoS pathogens2016

The Mutational Robustness of Influenza A Virus.

Elisa Visher, Shawn E Whitefield, John T McCrone, William Fitzsimmons, Adam S Lauring

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS pathogens, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
68citing papers in PubMed
12.4field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

68 citing papers in PubMed, 114 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
  2. Article
  3. Mutation rate variability in viral populations: Implications for lethal mutagenesis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Review
  12. Phylodynamics beyond neutrality: the impact of incomplete purifying selection on viral phylogenies and inference.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
  13. Human Riboviruses: A Comprehensive Study.Journal of molecular evolution · 2025
    Review
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Review
  19. Article
  20. Article

8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Elisa VisherDivision of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.ORCID 0000-0003-3984-4748
Shawn E WhitefieldDepartment of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.ORCID 0000-0002-3274-9230
John T McCroneDepartment of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
William FitzsimmonsDivision of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.ORCID 0000-0002-0997-1108
Adam S LauringDivision of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
University of Michigan · US

Funding

PREDOCTORAL TRAINING IN GENETICST32GM007544 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · PI MORAN, JOHN V. · 1985 to 2022
$11.3M
Fidelity, robustness, and diversity in RNA virus evolution and pathogenesisR01AI118886 · NIAID · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · PI LAURING, ADAM · 2016 to 2020
$2.0M
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 2013105NIAID NIH HHS R01 AI118886NIGMS NIH HHS T32 GM007544
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A virus' mutational robustness is described in terms of the strength and distribution of the mutational fitness effects, or MFE. The distribution of MFE is central to many questions in evolutionary theory and is a key parameter in models of molecular evolution. Here we define the mutational fitness effects in influenza A virus by generating 128 viruses, each with a single nucleotide mutation. In contrast to mutational scanning approaches, this strategy allowed us to unambiguously assign fitness values to individual mutations. The presence of each desired mutation and the absence of additional mutations were verified by next generation sequencing of each stock. A mutation was considered lethal only after we failed to rescue virus in three independent transfections. We measured the fitness of each viable mutant relative to the wild type by quantitative RT-PCR following direct competition on A549 cells. We found that 31.6% of the mutations in the genome-wide dataset were lethal and that the lethal fraction did not differ appreciably between the HA- and NA-encoding segments and the rest of the genome. Of the viable mutants, the fitness mean and standard deviation were 0.80 and 0.22 in the genome-wide dataset and best modeled as a beta distribution. The fitness impact of mutation was marginally lower in the segments coding for HA and NA (0.88 ± 0.16) than in the other 6 segments (0.78 ± 0.24), and their respective beta distributions had slightly different shape parameters. The results for influenza A virus are remarkably similar to our own analysis of CirSeq-derived fitness values from poliovirus and previously published data from other small, single stranded DNA and RNA viruses. These data suggest that genome size, and not nucleic acid type or mode of replication, is the main determinant of viral mutational fitness effects.

Indexed as

A549 CellsDNA, ViralEvolution, MolecularGenetic FitnessHemagglutininsHigh-Throughput Nucleotide SequencingHumansInfluenza A virusModels, GeneticMutagenesis, Site-DirectedNeuraminidasePoint MutationReal-Time Polymerase Chain ReactionTransfectionDNA, ViralHemagglutininsNeuraminidase

Identifiers

PMID27571422
PMCPMC5003363
OpenAlexW2513968826

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.