• FluTrackers.com Inc. does not provide medical advice. Information on this web site is collected from various internet resources, and the FluTrackers board of directors makes no warranty to the safety, efficacy, correctness or completeness of the information posted on this site by any author or poster. The information collated here is for instructional and/or discussion purposes only and is NOT intended to diagnose or treat any disease, illness, or other medical condition. Every individual reader or poster should seek advice from their personal physician/healthcare practitioner before considering or using any interventions that are discussed on this website. By continuing to access this website you agree to consult your personal physican before using any interventions posted on this website, and you agree to hold harmless FluTrackers.com Inc., the board of directors, the members, and all authors and posters for any effects from use of any medication, supplement, vitamin or other substance, device, intervention, etc. mentioned in posts on this website, or other internet venues referenced in posts on this website.
  • We are not asking for any donations. Do not donate to any entity who says they are raising funds for us.

A structural explanation for the low effectiveness of the seasonal influenza H3N2 vaccine

tetano

Editor, Senior Moderator
PLoS Pathog. 2017 Oct 23;13(10):e1006682. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006682. [Epub ahead of print]
[h=1]A structural explanation for the low effectiveness of the seasonal influenza H3N2 vaccine.[/h] Wu NC[SUP]1[/SUP], Zost SJ[SUP]2[/SUP], Thompson AJ[SUP]3[/SUP], Oyen D[SUP]1[/SUP], Nycholat CM[SUP]3[/SUP], McBride R[SUP]3[/SUP], Paulson JC[SUP]3,[/SUP][SUP]4[/SUP], Hensley SE[SUP]2[/SUP], Wilson IA[SUP]1,[/SUP][SUP]5[/SUP].
[h=3]Author information[/h]

[h=3]Abstract[/h] The effectiveness of the annual influenza vaccine has declined in recent years, especially for the H3N2 component, and is a concern for global public health. A major cause for this lack in effectiveness has been attributed to the egg-based vaccine production process. Substitutions on the hemagglutinin glycoprotein (HA) often arise during virus passaging that change its antigenicity and hence vaccine effectiveness. Here, we structurally characterize the effect of a prevalent substitution, L194P, in egg-passaged H3N2 viruses. X-ray structural analysis reveals that this substitution surprisingly increases the mobility of the 190-helix and neighboring regions in antigenic site B, which forms one side of the receptor binding site (RBS) and is immunodominant in recent human H3N2 viruses. Importantly, the L194P substitution decreases binding and neutralization by an RBS-targeted broadly neutralizing antibody by three orders of magnitude and significantly changes the HA antigenicity as measured by binding of human serum antibodies. The receptor binding mode and specificity are also altered to adapt to avian receptors during egg passaging. Overall, these findings help explain the low effectiveness of the seasonal vaccine against H3N2 viruses, and suggest that alternative approaches should be accelerated for producing influenza vaccines as well as isolating clinical isolates.


PMID: 29059230 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006682
 
Back
Top Bottom