All-purpose weapon against flu discovered?

European researchers are developing new flu vaccine

29/07/2011

Researchers are working on a new flu vaccine that is designed to protect against various types of influenza viruses other than previous vaccines. Until now, flu vaccines offered efficient protection only against individual virus types. Only by the combination of different active substances could protection against the different influenza viruses be achieved. However, as the influenza agents mutate extremely rapidly, the flu vaccines also had to be adjusted annually.

Now, an international research team with scientists from Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands has discovered an antibody that is intended as a kind of all-purpose weapon to protect against all influenza viruses. The antibodies identified have already proven their effectiveness in animal and mouse animal experiments, say Davide Corti from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland, in the current issue of the journal „Science“. As the antibodies unfold their effect on all influenza strains, a vaccine developed from them could protect them from all influenza viruses for years, the researchers concluded.

New antibody against influenza discovered
For years, scientists have been researching flu vaccines, which are intended to be effective as all-purpose weapons against all influenza viruses. The team of European scientists has now achieved initial successes. As part of their study, Davide Corti's researchers used a new procedure in one patient to identify the extremely rare F16 antibody that targets both major influenza A strains. Due to its unique structure at the viral binding site, the newly discovered antibody is able to dock on all viruses of the influenza A strains in order to be effective there, the researchers report in the current issue „Science“-Items. According to the scientists, the antibody binds at a point on the outer envelope of the virus, which changes only slightly as part of mutations, so that a corresponding vaccine would also protect against new influenza A viruses. The influenza A strains make up the majority of common influenza viruses.

Antibody could serve as a general purpose vaccine against influenza A strains
The influenza viruses use special proteins to dock on the cells of the human organism and then use the cells for their own multiplication. In influenza A strains, the protein hemagglutinin is used by the influenza virus to bind to the corresponding receptors of the host cell. The antibodies use just this protein to dock with the viruses and destroy the viruses, the scientists report. But influenza viruses change their structure relatively quickly, often affecting the structure of the hemagglutinin, so that the previous antibodies lose their effect. As a result, influenza vaccines could only protect against the pathogens for a limited period of time, the experts said. If necessary, the flu vaccinations were renewed annually. Therefore, scientists have been looking for long-term effective antibodies for years to develop a general purpose vaccine against influenza. But the chances of identifying an antibody that works against many different influenza viruses have so far been considered extremely low. However, the European research team has now succeeded in doing just that. The extremely rare antibody F16 is intended to protect against all flu viruses of the influenza A strains.

Research in the field of universal vaccines against influenza
British researchers led by Sarah Gilbert of the Jenner Institute had already reported first successes in February of this year in the search for a universal vaccine against all influenza viruses, but they followed a different approach than the scientists around Davide Corti in their current study. The British researchers developed a novel vaccine that, unlike previous vaccines, attacks the influenza virus inside the virus, providing long-term protection against all flu viruses, said Sarah Gilbert and colleagues in early February. The drug developed by the British researchers should not dock on the surface of the virus, but instead, according to the researchers, two proteins are at the core of the influenza virus. Since these proteins are an integral part of all influenza viruses, the vaccine could act as a general serum against all influenza genera, so the hope of the British scientists. (Fp)

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Sabine Holzke