Influenza A virus Raw sequence reads

In this study, viruses isolated from healthy patients undergoing fatal influenza infection and non-deceased patients cohorts were sequenced to identify viral genetic determinants contributing to infection outcome. Unexpectedly, virus populations associated with death showed significantly less defective genomes (DGs) than control virus populations, indicating that low amount of DGs is associated with increased pathogenicity. Moreover, we show that introduction of a mutation found in a fatal case into recombinant pandemic viruses results in low production of DGs, and increased pathogenesis in mouse infection models.