Link to full articleResearchers have identified a group of antibodies that neutralize a wide range of influenza viruses, including the H5N1 avian influenza, the 1918 Spanish flu and some seasonal strains. These molecules may one day be used therapeutically to protect patients against a broad array of strains.
The antibodies also give researchers clues about how to develop new vaccines. "This opens up the avenue of thinking about universal influenza vaccines, which has not been realistic before," says Peter Palese, an influenza expert at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York who was not involved in the work.
Recently, several teams have identified similar broadly neutralizing antibodies2,3, but their mechanism was unknown. So the Marasco group teamed up with Robert Liddington and William Hwang of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, to determine the crystal structure of one of Sui's antibodies bound to a hemagglutinin. They found that the antibody interacted not with the hemagglutinin's head, as antibodies often do, but rather with its stem.
he antibodies do fail to recognize some hemagglutinin variants, apparently because of a structural difference in the stems. It appears, however, that there are only two fundamental stem structures among all influenza hemagglutinins. So the strategies employed in this study could also be used to target the remaining variants.
The natural question to ask is do other virus groups share the same type of potential flaw that could allow a "group" vaccine.
Topic: Universal influenza vaccines? (Read 1015 times)