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In a recent study, researchers have developed an experimental influenza vaccine that can protect animals from various seasonal and pandemic influenza strains. The vaccine is currently developing in the direction of clinical testing. If proven to be safe and effective, these next-generation influenza vaccines could replace current seasonal options by providing protection against more strains that current vaccines cannot adequately cover.
This new study was published in the March 24 issue of the journal Nature, examining in detail the design of new influenza vaccines and how they protect mice, ferrets and non-human primates, with the title of Quadrivalent influenza nanoparticle vaccines induce broad protection. This study was led by researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Vaccine Research Center part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
Influenza vaccines that confer broad and durable protection against diverse viral strains would have a major effect on global health, as they would lessen the need for annual vaccine reformulation and immunization. In this paper, the researchers show that computationally designed, two-component nanoparticle immunogens induce potently neutralizing and broadly protective antibody responses against a wide variety of influenza viruses.
The nanoparticle immunogens contain 20 haemagglutinin glycoprotein trimers in an ordered array, and their assembly in vitro enables the precisely controlled co-display of multiple distinct haemagglutinin proteins in defined ratios. Nanoparticle immunogens that co-display the four haemagglutinins of licensed quadrivalent influenza vaccines elicited antibody responses in several animal models against vaccine-matched strains that were equivalent to or better than commercial quadrivalent influenza vaccines, and simultaneously induced broadly protective antibody responses to heterologous viruses by targeting the subdominant yet conserved haemagglutinin stem. The combination of potent receptor-blocking and cross-reactive stem-directed antibodies induced by the nanoparticle immunogens makes them attractive candidates for a supra-seasonal influenza vaccine candidate with the potential to replace conventional seasonal vaccines.
It is estimated that the influenza virus causes 290,000-650,000 deaths per year. Existing influenza vaccines need to be used seasonally and usually cannot prevent multiple circulating influenza strains. In order to create an improved version of the flu vaccine, the research team linked hemagglutinin proteins from four different influenza viruses to customized protein nanoparticles. Compared with traditional influenza vaccines, this method can control the molecular configuration of the obtained vaccines unprecedentedly and produce an improved immune response. The new nanoparticle vaccine contains the same four hemagglutinin proteins as the commercially available quadrivalent influenza vaccine, resulting in neutralizing antibody responses to vaccine-matched strains that are equivalent or better to commercial vaccines in mice, ferrets, and non-human primates. The nanoparticle vaccines (rather than commercial vaccines) can also induce protective antibody responses against viruses not contained in the vaccine formulation.
About the author: With years of experience in the pharmaceutical and life science sector, CD Bioparticles is a leading manufacturer and supplier of various nanoparticles that can be widely used in biology and medicine fields, including colloidal gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, titania nanoparticles, inorganic fluorescent nanoparticles (quantum dots and upconversion nanocrystals), and biodegradable polymer nanoparticles. Our nanoparticles are manufactured with different shapes and sizes, and the particle surface can be coated, functionalized or conjugated with biomolecules for research use.
Reference
Boyoglu-Barnum, S., Ellis, D., Gillespie, R. A., Hutchinson, G. B., Park, Y. J., Moin, S. M., … & Kanekiyo, M. (2021). Quadrivalent influenza nanoparticle vaccines induce broad protection. Nature, 1-6.