MC-NN: An End-to-End Multi-Channel Neural Network Approach for Predicting Influenza A Virus Hosts and Antigenic Types

AbstractInfluenza poses a significant threat to public health, particularly among the elderly, young children, and people with underlying diseases. The manifestation of severe conditions, such as pneumonia, highlights the importance of preventing the spread of influenza. An accurate and cost-effective prediction of the host and antigenic subtypes of influenza A viruses is essential to addressing this issue, particularly in resource-constrained regions. In this study, we propose a multi-channel neural network model to predict the host and antigenic subtypes of influenza A viruses from hemagglutinin and neuraminidase protein sequences. Our model was trained on a comprehensive data set of complete protein sequences and evaluated on various test data sets of complete and incomplete sequences. The results demonstrate the potential and practicality of using multi-channel neural networks in predicting the host and antigenic subtypes of influenza A viruses from both full and partial protein sequences.