Reassortment

Performing reassortment with flu viruses to make a vaccine

Reassortment is the mixing of the genetic material of a species into new combinations in different individuals. The product of reassortment is called a reassortant. It is particularly used when two similar viruses that are infecting the same cell exchange genetic material. More specifically, it refers to the swapping of entire segments of the genome, which only occurs between viruses with segmented genomes. (All known viruses with segmented genomes are RNA viruses. When only part of a nucleic acid molecule is changed by swapping, the process is instead known as recombination.)

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