Press release

Monday, June 3, 2019

What

A study on influenza virus transmission among Nicaraguan households reveals new information on the type of immune response that can protect against infection with the flu virus, researchers report. The findings could help scientists design more effective influenza vaccines and develop new universal flu vaccines. The research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

The research team included scientists from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and centers of excellence for NIAID-funded research and surveillance for influenza at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine and at the University of Michigan. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Investigators from the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health, the Sustainable Sciences Institute and the Socrates Flores Health Center, all located in Managua, Nicaragua, conducted the study in the field. Their results are published in Nature Medicine.

The study focused on the antibodies produced against the "stem" of hemagglutinin (HA), a surface protein of the influenza virus shaped mushroom. The HA stem is less variable than the HA head, the area targeted by current seasonal influenza vaccines, and the standard laboratory tests used to evaluate a person's immune response to a particular strain of influenza.

The study team followed 88 people infected with the pandemic H1N1 flu virus and 300 of their household contacts. For the latter group, the team measured prior HA antibody levels using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and additional blood samples were collected. days later. The investigators also obtained nose and throat samples taken at the beginning of the study and every other day about two weeks later to determine if they were infected with the influenza virus. Eighty-four (28%) of the 300 family contacts eventually contracted laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infection and 53 (63%) of those infected developed flu-like symptoms.

The investigators found that people with higher levels of HA strain antibodies at the start of the study were less likely to be infected with the flu. The results suggest that the level of HA strain antibodies can be used as an indicator, or correlate, of protection against infection with the influenza virus. The study provided data to support the development of new candidate vaccines targeting the HA stem, according to the researchers. Scientists hope that these candidate vaccines will provide broader and more sustainable protection against influenza than current vaccines. The authors note that future studies should examine the role of anti-HA strains for various strains of influenza virus.

article

S Ng et al. New correlates of protection against infection with pandemic H1N1 influenza A virus. Nature Medicine DOI: 10.1038 / s41591-019-0463-x (2019)

who

Anthony S. Fauci, Director of NIAID, is available for comment.

Contact

To schedule interviews, please contact Jennifer Routh at (301) 402-1663, [email protected].

The research was funded by NIAID grant R01AI20997 and contracts HHSN272201400008C and HHSN272201400006C.

This availability of media describes basic research. Basic research increases our understanding of human behavior and biology, which is fundamental to advancing new and improved methods of disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Science is an unpredictable and progressive process – every breakthrough in research builds on past discoveries, often unexpectedly. Most clinical progress would not be possible without the knowledge of basic fundamental research.

NIAID conducts and supports research – at NIH, in the United States, and around the world – to investigate the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases and to develop better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat these diseases. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related documents are available on the NIAID website at www.niaid.nih.gov.

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The NIH, the country's medical research agency, has 27 institutes and centers and is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the lead federal agency that leads and supports basic, clinical and translational medical research. She studies causes, treatments and treatments for common and rare diseases. For more information on NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

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