Abstract
Influenza pandemics pose public health threats annually for lacking vaccine that provides cross-protection against novel and emerging influenza viruses. Combining conserved antigens that induce cross-protective antibody responses with epitopes that activate cross-protective T cell responses might be an attractive strategy for developing a universal vaccine. In this study, we constructed a recombinant protein named NMHC that consists of influenza viral conserved epitopes and a superantigen fragment. NMHC promoted the maturation of bone marrow-derived dendritic cells and induced CD4+ T cells to differentiate into Th1, Th2, and Th17 subtypes. Mice vaccinated with NMHC produced high levels of immunoglobulins that cross-bound to HA fragments from six influenza virus subtypes with high antibody titers. Anti-NMHC serum showed potent hemagglutinin inhibition effects to highly divergent group 1 (H1 subtype) and group 2 (H3 subtype) influenza virus strains. Furthermore, purified anti-NMHC antibodies bound to multiple HAs with high affinities. NMHC vaccination effectively protected mice from infection and lung damage when exposed to two subtypes of H1N1 influenza virus. Moreover, NMHC vaccination elicited CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses that cleared the virus from infected tissues and prevented virus spread. In conclusion, this study provides proof of concept that NMHC vaccination triggers B and T cell immune responses against multiple influenza virus infections. Therefore, NMHC might be a candidate universal broad-spectrum vaccine for the prevention and treatment of multiple influenza viruses.
Highlights
Seasonal influenza viruses infect 5%–15% of the global population and kill several hundred thousand people every year despite the availability of antivirals and inactivated tetravalent vaccines, which are effective for most recipients(Ellebedy et al, 2014)
The recombinant protein NMHC consisted of NMH at the N-terminal and Staphylococcal Enterotoxin C2 (SEC2) at the
The structural modeling of NMHC in silico revealed that the fused NMH was independent of the SEC2 region (Fig. 1D), which implied that the domains of NMH and SEC2 would not affect each other
Summary
Seasonal influenza viruses infect 5%–15% of the global population and kill several hundred thousand people every year despite the availability of antivirals and inactivated tetravalent vaccines, which are effective for most recipients(Ellebedy et al, 2014). Lanes 10-12, 19, 20: elution fractions (complexes of NMH antigen and purified antibodies from serum of mice immunized with NMHC, NMH, PBS, NMH+SEC2, and SEC2, respectively). Lanes 13-15, 17, 18: NMH antigens unbound by purified antibodies from serum of mice immunized with NMHC, NMH, PBS, NMH+SEC2, and
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