Vaccines (Mar 2024)

Influenza a Neuraminidase-Based Bivalent mRNA Vaccine Induces Th1-Type Immune Response and Provides Protective Effects in Mice

  • Mingyang Li,
  • Mengyuan Liu,
  • Shaohui Song,
  • Ruirui Zhao,
  • Yun Xie,
  • Jing Liu,
  • Lilan Xu,
  • Xuefeng Ma,
  • Mingyu Song,
  • Jian Zhou,
  • Guoyang Liao

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines12030300
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 3
p. 300

Abstract

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Vaccines are one of the most effective means of preventing influenza A, typically containing the hemagglutinin (HA) of the influenza A virus. However, antigenic drift and shift of the influenza A virus can lead to instability in vaccine efficacy. Compared to HA, the antigenic variation rate of neuraminidase (NA) is slower. In traditional inactivated influenza vaccines, although they contain a certain amount of NA, there are significant differences between different batches, which cannot consistently induce NA-based immune responses. Therefore, NA is often overlooked in vaccine development. In this study, we report an mRNA vaccine encoding the NA of two strains of influenza A virus. The experimental results demonstrated that when matched with the viral strain, this mRNA vaccine induced high levels of neutralizing antibodies, providing a protective effect to mice in viral challenge experiments, and this immune response was shown to be biased towards the Th1 type. In summary, this study demonstrates that NA is a promising potential antigen, providing new insights for the development of influenza A virus vaccines.

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