简介：Thesurfaceglycoproteinhemagglutinin(HA)helpstheinfluenzaAvirustoevadethehostimmunesystembyantigenicvariationandisamajordrivingforceforviralevolution.Inthisstudy,theselectionpressureonHAofH5N1influenzaAviruswasanalyzedusingbioinformaticsalgorithms.Mostoftheidentifiedpositiveselection(PS)siteswerefoundtobewithinoradjacenttoepitopesites.SomeoftheidentifiedPSsitesareconsistentwithpreviousexperimentalstudies,providingfurthersupporttothebiologicalsignificanceofourfindings.ThehighestfrequencyofPSsiteswasobservedinrecentstrainsisolatedduring2005–2007.PhylogeneticanalysiswasalsoconductedonHAsequencesfromvarioushosts.Viraldriftisalmostsimilarinbothavianandhumanspecieswithaprogressivetrendovertheyears.OurstudyreportsnewmutationsinfunctionalregionsofHAthatmightprovidemarkersforvaccinedesignorcanbeusedtopredictisolatesofpandemicpotential.