[ad_1]
Agency
MADRID.- A combination of llama and human antibodies administered by a virus protects against almost all types of influenza. The experiment was conducted on mice and shows all the complexity of fighting the flu virus, but also a lot of human ingenuity.
According to El País, although there is still much to be done for tests on humans. and many things can be wrong by then, this new strategy on the promise of a universal flu shot.
The flu virus is one of the most elusive of all. In addition to the hundreds of types, subtypes and strains identified, its mutation rate is very high.
You may also be interested: Alcohol causes memory loss … and even cravings!
Much of this virus's ability to escape is due to a substance that, like flowers, springs from its surface in clusters of three. This is what is called haemagglutinin (HA), a protein that stands out in a double sense: it is responsible for fixing the virus on the infected cell, but that is also the most exposed part and to which the defenses react first.
Therefore, l because current vaccines target haemagglutinin, especially its three heads . Since the middle of the last century, the H3N2 influenza virus has undergone 75 changes in HA proteins. This shows why the vaccine is also different each year and can only be designed for one or two of the dominant strains each season.
Unlike humans, camelid antibodies are smaller and have different targets .
"Camelid antibodies have been known for some time and they have several unique properties that make them attractive for drug development," says Janssen's Infectious Diseases and Vaccines Division researcher in an e-mail. from the study, Joost Kolkman. They are about 10 times smaller than human antibodies.
Thus, Kolkman and thirty other scientists selected four different antibodies among a group of lamas immunized with vaccines against various types of influenza virus or with other hemagglutinin immune responses. They found that they detected and acted against HA, three of them on the stem. But each type of camelid antibody was acting against a certain variety of viruses .
Before testing it in mice, the creation with one part of a human antibody (immunoglobulin G) of four different types of antibodies from the flames was completed. "The humanization of anti-flame antibodies can be achieved by obtaining antibodies that further share the antibodies, 98% identity with human antibodies," says Kolkman. After injecting these broad-spectrum antibodies into mice before infecting them with influenza, they found that their survival rate was higher than that of conventional vaccines.
" The immune response of mice and humans is very similar but not identical ," says retired research professor at the National Center for Biotechnology, Juan Ortín.
[ad_2]
Source link
