A team led by Dr. John Schrader, Professor in the Division of Haematology, have published a new paper in the jounral Frontiers in Immunology that may pave the way for new, more universal, flu vaccines.

Their study examined the antibodies produced by patients who were infected with the 2009 pandemic H1N1 flu virus, and those who were vaccinated against the virus. They found that many of the antibodies produced in response to the virus recognized a particular portion of the flu virus particle, called the stem.  Most current vaccines cause the host to produce antibodies against a different portion of the virus, the head. The head portion of the flu virus mutates regularly, which is why the flu vaccine changes from year to year. In this case, the stem portion does not change as regularly as the head does, so that antibodies which recognize the stem are better able to recognize multiple strains of the flu.

Dr. Schrader’s team found that antibodies produced against the stem portion of the 2009 H1N1 virus were also able to recognize the seasonal H1N1 and the potentially dangerous H5N1 avian flu virus. When the stem antibodies were transferred into mice, they were protected from infection with H5N1.

This finding indicates that it may be possible to find an area of the flu particle that can cause widespread immunity to this quickly-changing virus.

 

For the full news release, please check here.