Abstract
Influenza is an infectious disease and can lead to life-threatening complications like pneumonia. The disease is caused by three types of RNA viruses called influenza types A, B and C, each consisting of eight negative single-stranded RNA-segments encoding 11 proteins. Current annual vaccines contain two type A strains and one type B strain and are capable of inducing strong antibody responses to both the surface glycoprotein hemagglutinin and the neuraminidase. While these vaccines are protective against vaccine viruses they are not effective against newly emerging viruses that contain antigenic variations known as antigenic drift and shift. In nature, environmental selection pressure generally plays a key role in selecting antigenic changes in the antigen determining spots of hemagglutinin, resulting in changes in the antigenicity of the virus. Recently, a new technology has been developed where influenza-specific IgG+ antibody-secreting plasma cells can be isolated and cloned directly from vaccinated humans and high affinity monoclonal antibodies can be produced within several weeks after vaccination. The new technology holds great promise for the development of effective passive antibody therapy to limit the spread of influenza viruses in a timely manner.
Highlights
Influenza is an infectious disease with symptoms of the common cold such as chills, high fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, bleeding from nose, weakness and general discomfort, but it is a much more severe disease as it can lead to life-threatening complications and death
Influenza is caused by three types of RNA viruses called influenza types A, B and C, which all belong to the orthomyxoviridae family
Each influenza virus consists of eight negative single-stranded RNA-segments encoding 11 proteins [2]
Summary
Influenza is an infectious disease with symptoms of the common cold such as chills, high fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, bleeding from nose, weakness and general discomfort, but it is a much more severe disease as it can lead to life-threatening complications (like pneumonia) and death. Like other RNA viruses, the HA and NA antigens are highly variable, and this makes it difficult to control new epidemics of influenza. The first study details the relationship between changing environmental selective pressure and antigenic changes in human influenza [5], and the second one reports the identification of timedependent antibody response to an influenza vaccine virus and rapid production of high affinity, virus-specific human monoclonal antibodies [6].
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