can you get multiple mutations of the flu at the same time?
In: Biology
Of course! You can get infected by different strains at the same time, and in fact that is how those strains developed in the first place. They needed to mutate in people because viruses aren’t really “alive” and can’t replicate on their own. Over time the virus is going to be mutating inside any given person, gradually diverging from other populations.
There is also a process called “reassortment” where two different influenza viruses infect the same cell and exchange gene segments. The influenza virus is made of segments with coding sequences on individual RNA strands, so they can sort of mix and match parts!
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