By By Tim Sandle Feb 9, 2014 in Science The differences in the seasonal flu strains relate to tiny mutations in the influenza virus genes. However, major pandemics are connected to major genetic shifts. By studying these differences, scientists hope to predict the seriousness of the flu season. Scientists think that certain genetic changes, classed as "minor" or "major," which take place through the season, lead to either a standard strain of flu emerging or a serious threat to human life. This difference has been studied, apparently for the first time, by a Russian research team from the This work is very complex because the flu virus contains eight individual genetic segments and there are multiple combinations. With ordinary flu, the changes are small (triggered by a process termed 'antigenic drift'). However, when the flu virus reassembles these components to form a new strain through a process termed ' The results have been Flu is very difficult to exterminate because of the high evolutionary rate of the flu virus. Each year, new flu strains appear that differ slightly from those that were common a year before. This genetic trickery helps the virus to escape the body's immune response. Sometimes, one of the new strains that appears poses a more serious risk: pandemic. A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that has spread through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide.Scientists think that certain genetic changes, classed as "minor" or "major," which take place through the season, lead to either a standard strain of flu emerging or a serious threat to human life.This difference has been studied, apparently for the first time, by a Russian research team from the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics of the Moscow State University (MSU) in collaboration with the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology and the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IITP).This work is very complex because the flu virus contains eight individual genetic segments and there are multiple combinations. With ordinary flu, the changes are small (triggered by a process termed 'antigenic drift'). However, when the flu virus reassembles these components to form a new strain through a process termed ' reassortment ', then pandemics can emerge (such as those which occurred in 1957 and 1968).The results have been published in the journal PLoS Genetics. The paper is titled "Intrasubtype Reassortments Cause Adaptive Amino Acid Replacements in H3N2 Influenza Genes". More about Genes, Flu, Influenza, Seasonal flu More news from Genes Flu Influenza Seasonal flu