Figure 1

Host tropism prediction results for sample strains. The results for four avian strains are shown at the top while the bottom half shows results for four human strains. The prediction results were strung together illustrating an entire influenza A genome with eight segments encoding 11 proteins. The proteins coded by the segment are listed at the bottom of the figure. Each protein prediction is independent and is not influenced by prediction of other proteins. Blue bars represent a prediction of avian by the corresponding protein prediction model while red bars represent a prediction result of human. Grey bars indicate that prediction was not made as the corresponding protein sequence was not available or incomplete. Accurate predictions were made for all 11 proteins for the first two avian strains as well as the final two human strains. However, prediction results for the remaining four strains from the 1997 H5N1 outbreak in Hong Kong and the 2013 H7N9 outbreak in China show mixed predictions of avian and human proteins. The human strains isolated during the two outbreaks showing some of its proteins predicted as avian indicate the source of infection as most likely avian. On the other hand, the avian strains from chickens during the two outbreaks have several proteins that were predicted human and suggest that these proteins could have adapted to human host.