Promising strategy for developing mRNA-based universal influenza virus vaccine for human population, poultry, and pigs– focus on the bigger picture

Abstract

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Since the first outbreak in the 19th century influenza virus has remained emergent owing to the huge pandemic potential. Only the pandemic of 1918 caused more deaths than any war in world history. Although two types of influenza– A (IAV) and B (IBV) cause epidemics annually, influenza A deserves more attention as its nature is much wilier. IAVs have a large animal reservoir and cause the infection manifestation not only in the human population but in poultry and domestic pigs as well. This many-sided characteristic of IAV along with the segmented genome gives rise to the antigenic drift and shift that allows evolving the new strains and new subtypes, respectively. As a result, the immune system of the body is unable to recognize them. Importantly, several highly pathogenic avian IAVs have already caused sporadic human infections with a high fatality rate (~60%). The current review discusses the promising strategy of using a potentially universal IAV mRNA vaccine based on conserved elements for humans, poultry, and pigs. This will better aid in averting the outbreaks in different susceptible species, thus, reduce the adverse impact on agriculture, and economics, and ultimately, prevent deadly pandemics in the human population.

Keywords

• influenza virus
• avian influenza
• universal vaccine
• mRNA vaccine
• epidemics
• pandemics