Genetic and Phylogenetic Characterization of the M Gene of Influenza A Virus Isolated from Iranian Patients

BACKGROUND: A few studies have been done on the molecular analysis of Iranian influenza A isolates M gene. METHODS: In 2014, nasal swabs collected from outpatients with clinical symptoms in the hospital clinics of Tehran, Iran were subjected for influenza detection and subtyping using Real-Time RT-PCR. Sequence and phylogenetic analysis performed on four randomly selected isolates from each subtype (H1N1 and H3N2) using neighbor-joining method. RESULTS: Phylogenetic dendrograms drawn based on M nucleotide sequence of H1N1 isolates showed close relatedness with Omanian isolates while the most isolates of H3N2 have clustered with Kuwait isolates and isolates from outside of geographical location. Amino acid sequence analysis showed S31N substitution in all isolates rendering the virus resistant to adamantanes. CONCLUSION: This study determined the sequence identity and phylogenetic relatedness of M gene sequence got from Iranian influenza A isolates to elucidate the modality of relationship of this gene in comparison with its counterparts from other regions.