The flu virus may evolve much less rapidly than has previously been thought – opening up fresh hope of a universal vaccine, researchers have found.
Flu vaccine campaigns have to be conducted annually because the virus mutates constantly into new forms invisible to the antibodies generated by vaccination.
Now a study undertaken jointly by British and Dutch researchers has found that just one amino acid change is often responsible for the mutation.
The researchers say there may be just seven places on the virus where these changes take place. Other studies have suggested 130 places.
Researchers from Cambridge University, UK, and the Erasmus Medical Centre, the Netherlands, reported their findings in the journal Science.
The study also found that the seven places where changes take place are concentrated near the "binding site", the point at which the virus attaches itself to host cells.
Researcher Professor Derek Smith, from Cambridge, said: "This work is a major step forward in our understanding of the evolution of flu viruses, and could possibly enable us to predict that evolution.
"If we can do that, then we can make flu vaccines that would be even more effective than the current vaccine."
Fellow researcher Björn Koel, from Erasmus Medical Centre, said: "The virus needs to conserve this, its binding site, as it uses this site to recognise the cells that it infects in our throats."
Substitutions Near the Receptor Binding Site Determine Major Antigenic Change During Influenza Virus Evolution. Science 21 November 2013
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