Influenza Antigen Engineering Focuses Immune Responses to a Subdominant but Broadly Protective Viral Epitope.

ABSTRACT: Viral glycoproteins are under constant immune surveillance by a host's adaptive immune responses. Antigenic variation including glycan introduction or removal is among the mechanisms viruses have evolved to escape host immunity. Understanding how glycosylation affects immunodominance on complex protein antigens may help decipher underlying B cell biology. To determine how B cell responses can be altered by such modifications, we engineered glycans onto the influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) and characterized the molecular features of the elicited humoral immunity in mice. We found that glycan addition changed the initially diverse antibody repertoire into an epitope-focused, genetically restricted response. Structural analyses showed that one antibody gene family targeted a previously subd

SUBMITTER: Bajic G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6748655 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature