Influenza Strains: According to research, some animals were successfully immunised against each of the 20 known influenza A and B virus strains. This represents a big step forward in the creation of a universal flu vaccine. Because scientists can’t currently identify which subtype of influenza virus will trigger the next pandemic, a universal flu vaccination that could shield people from a variety of influenza virus strains is crucial. The majority of research efforts to create a vaccine against all flu subtypes have concentrated on a small number of antigens.
A different strategy for creating a universal flu vaccination has been to create a multivalent vaccine that could encode all known influenza virus subtypes and provide protection against all known illnesses and pathogen strains. The study outlining the conclusions was released in the journal Science in November.
Know about the types of influenza virus
The four influenza virus types are A, B, C, and D, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Seasonal epidemics of human illness in the United States are brought on by the influenza A and B virus strains almost every winter. The flu season refers to the period of time when persons in the US are susceptible to influenza A and B virus strains.
What are immunisations against the seasonal flu?
The seasonal influenza vaccinations that are now on the market provide only limited protection against the flu in humans because they support the immune system’s defences against just four influenza virus types. Both influenza A and B viruses are present here. According on predictions of which strains are likely to make people sick during the upcoming season, seasonal flu vaccines are modified each year to better protect against certain strains.
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What causes it to be challenging to create seasonal influenza vaccines?
It is challenging to develop efficient pre-pandemic vaccines since it is unclear which influenza virus subtype will produce the next pandemic.
All about the potential universal influenza vaccination, which offered defence against 20 influenza strains
In the new work, Claudia P. Arevalo from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and other researchers developed a lipid nanoparticle vaccine made of messenger RNA with a modified nucleoside by utilising recent developments in nucleic acid-based vaccine platforms. A nucleotide comprises sugar, nitrogenous bases, and a phosphate group, whereas a nucleoside just contains sugar and nitrogenous bases.
According to the study, this vaccine candidate has hemagglutinin antigens from each of the 20 recognised influenza A and B virus subtypes. Mice and ferrets were immunised by the researchers. High quantities of cross-reactive and subtype-specific antibodies were produced in both animals in response to the vaccination candidate. A phenomenon known as “cross-reactivity” occurs when an antibody produced in response to one antigen might start an immunological response against another antigen. As a result, both matched and mismatched influenza virus strains were protected from the animals by the vaccine.
All 20 encoded antigens were recognised by the study’s vaccine candidate. As a result, mice and ferrets exposed to both matched and mismatched virus strains were able to be protected by vaccination. The authors of the study came to the conclusion that mRNA vaccines can defend against viruses with varied antigens by simultaneously generating antibodies against several antigens.
Multivalent vaccines must be created in such a way as to support the immune system’s defence of the body against any variety of a specific infection.
How the potential vaccine was created
The researchers used the same mRNA technology as is employed in Covid-19 vaccinations to create this prospective mRNA vaccine. However, years before the Covid-19 epidemic began, researchers began developing this vaccine in 2017. According to a CNN story, this research assisted in laying the foundation for the Covid-19 vaccinations.
The goal of the study was to pinpoint one or two places where virus strains do not differ significantly from one another in order to teach the immune system to produce antibodies against these areas and shield people from several viruses at once.
The goal of the study was to develop a vaccine that could recognise hemagglutinin, a protein found in each of the 20 types of influenza viruses now recognised.
According to Scott Hensley, senior author on the current paper, this protein is comparable to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, as stated in the CNN report.
The researchers injected mice with every antigen they intended to include in the vaccine to ensure that each antigen triggered an immune response before creating a vaccine candidate that could develop significant levels of antibodies against all 20 strains.
Each strain was administered in a dose of 2.5 milligram, according to the report, so the vaccine candidate contained an overall dose of 50 milligram of mRNA.
The researchers tested the shots in mice that had never been exposed to influenza as well as in mice that had previously been infected with H1N1 flu virus strains that were similar to or different from the strains included in the vaccine to determine whether the vaccine specifically increased antibodies in mice that had already been exposed to influenza.
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Results of the research
The researchers found that the vaccine produced new antibodies against viral proteins that the mice’s immune systems were unfamiliar with in addition to boosting the immune responses of mice that had already been exposed to the influenza virus.
Only the viral strains were neutralised by the antibodies produced in mice exposed to strains that were quite similar to those they had previously contracted.
However, mice exposed to strains that were less comparable to the ones that had previously been infected were ill and began to recover seven to eight days after exposure.
After being exposed to the strains, the mice given the placebo vaccine, which included mRNA instructions to produce an unrelated enzyme, died.
There are several universal flu vaccines under development.
The US National Institutes of Health are working on and testing a universal flu vaccination (NIH). Clinical trials of the universal flu vaccine being developed by the NIH are open to healthy persons between the ages of 18 and 55 who do not smoke and have not had either a Covid-19 vaccination or a flu shot in the eight weeks before to enrolment.
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