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Llamas have a much less appreciated feature than their eyes, their long necks and their warm, soft coats: they make a host of immune system antibodies so small that they can lodge in crevices on the surface of the body. 'an invasive virus.
This feat could one day protect humans from entire families of influenza viruses that hinder scientists with their unpredictable and changing methods.
All potentially with a puff of air once a year.
In a study in the Friday edition of the journal Science a team from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, United States, and their international colleagues took a major step in the achieving the long-sought goal of developing a universal flu vaccine.
When they tested their intranasal formulation in mice, it quickly gave full protection against a group of human influenza strains adapted to mice.
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Against the H1N1 virus, one dose of the experimental vaccine has been shown to protect against at least 35 days – a time interval equivalent to more than one influenza season in humans.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, thoroughly explained the new study, which received funding from the National Institutes of Health.
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The flu is a viral plague that kills up to 650,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization.
"From a scientific and technical point of view, it really is a very elegant study – the highest quality of science," Fauci said.
He commended him for demonstrating it to protect people against pathogens that may change or emerge. Unpredictably, scientists need to design vaccines that can kill a large number of viruses, even in people with compromised or compromised immune systems.
The flu is a viral plague that kills up to 650,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization. . To combat this scourge, the research team has borrowed new techniques from laboratories around the world for immunology, microbiology, nanotechnology and genetic engineering.
First, they vaccinated llamas against a number of influenza A and B strains. They then took blood samples to collect the antibodies that the llamas produced in response
. Among them were four particularly small antibodies, capable of destroying many different strains of the flu. Making a wink to their size and function, they called their creations "nanobodies".
From these small multitaskers, the researchers designed a single protein that could sneak into too small spaces for most proteins.
"The resultant MD3606 multidomain antibody", with "its impressive width and power", could confer protection against just about every influenza strain that nature could cause to humans, have said the authors of the study.
During a given season, these antibodies would be ready to receive the unwanted guest. If an influenza strain came from nowhere and threatened a population without immunity – the nightmare scenario of an influenza pandemic – this supercharged defender would recognize this flu and counter it. and ordered a vaccine that would be largely ineffective – a scenario that was played out during the last influenza season – this package of antibodies could save the situation.
But researchers still faced a major obstacle: to make sure that the human immune system super-protein, even because of age, stress and disease.
Their solution: do not even try.
Instead, they developed a way to bypbad the unreliable response of humans to vaccines, by creating a gene that encodes the production plans of their core protein. To transport this gene into a host organism, they have enlisted a harmless virus used by laboratories working on gene therapy.
By splicing their designer gene into this viral delivery device, scientists have not only found a way to get their package of antibodies in a
This "pbadive transfer" of 'The antibody confers on this vaccine candidate the potential to be as effective for everyone,' said Fauci.
The next step is to perform additional tests in animals and clinical trials in humans, and that "will take years," he said. "But if it's fully successful – a majestic leap now – it could essentially eliminate the need for season-to-season" to guess which of the many possible influenza viruses will develop, and then build an annual flu vaccine perfectly suited to the situation. 19659002] Ian Wilson, an immunologist at Scripps, lead author of the study, said that as cells "infected" with the delivery virus flipped over, repeated doses might be needed to maintain production. # 39; antibodies.
"We do not really know how this treatment could still survive in humans," he said.
But even less permanent immunity against a wide range of influenza-like threats would help protect people against the appearance of unexpected influenza strains, Wilson said. And the rapid response of the mice to the vaccine suggests that it could be used to inoculate a population after the appearance of a new viral threat, he added.
The experimental vaccine might have to be administered every year making it an interesting hybrid, said Ted M Ross, director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunology at the University of Georgia.
"This approach is similar to the antivenom," Ross said. "Therapeutics is an antibody that has been made in another species to neutralize the toxin – it's short-term, but it allows you to go through a time when bad things could happen."
Over time, patients who have received the same antibodies repeatedly could start building resistance to them, he said. Vaccine manufacturers could counter this by finding and including new antibodies in their formulation every few years, he suggested.
Ross and other scientists have also warned that the human immune system could see proteins derived from foreign llamas and attack them. ] This is not the only universal influenza vaccine under development. In May, Fauci's NIAID launched the first clinical trial to test the safety of a universal flu vaccine in 120 healthy people.
The vaccine candidate, called M-001, targets parts of the flu virus that tend not to change, even the others. proteins do. This should prompt the human immune system to recognize and fight against many different strains of influenza virus.
Janssen Vaccines and Prevention, a Dutch company that employs some of the authors of the study, filed a patent application to cover some of the molecules described. in the new report.
– The Los Angeles Times
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