Influenza hemagglutinin stem-fragment immunogen elicits broadly neutralizing antibodies and confers heterologous protection.

ABSTRACT: Influenza hemagglutinin (HA) is the primary target of the humoral response during infection/vaccination. Current influenza vaccines typically fail to elicit/boost broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), thereby limiting their efficacy. Although several bnAbs bind to the conserved stem domain of HA, focusing the immune response to this conserved stem in the presence of the immunodominant, variable head domain of HA is challenging. We report the design of a thermotolerant, disulfide-free, and trimeric HA stem-fragment immunogen which mimics the native, prefusion conformation of HA and binds conformation specific bnAbs with high affinity. The immunogen elicited bnAbs that neutralized highly divergent group 1 (H1 and H5 subtypes) and 2 (H3 subtype) influenza virus strains in vitro. Stem immun

SUBMITTER: Mallajosyula VV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4078824 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature