New Flu Vaccine Protects Against Multiple Strains of H1N1
The latest flu vaccine may protect against both seasonal and pandemic flu strains, including H1N1, according to a new study.
Creating a new flu vaccine each year is challenging, especially when multiple strains of the virus are circulating at once. Therefore, a universal vaccine that protects against multiple flu strains would greatly improve the standard of care given to the public, according to researchers.
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They used the computationally optimized broadly reactive antigen (COBRA) technique to create 9 vaccines from multiple strains of the flu, including H1N1 viruse strains from over the last 100 years.
The vaccines were then tested on a mouse model in cocktails or prime-boost combinations.
Four of the 9 vaccines protected against 17 strains of H1N1: X1, X3, X6, and P1. The most effective combinations contained the P1 and X3 or X6 vaccines.
This vaccine strategy is the first to elicit a broadly-reactive response against seasonal and pandemic H1N1 strains.
“Universal influenza vaccine approaches have the potential to be paradigm-shifting for the influenza vaccine field, with the goal of replacing current standard of care with broadly cross-protective vaccines,” researchers concluded. “We have used COBRA technology to develop a hemagglutinin head based strategy that elicits antibodies against many drifted H1 strains and has potential as a ‘subtype universal’ vaccine.”
—Amanda Balbi
Reference:
Carter DM, Darby CA, LeFoley BC, et al. Design and characterization of a COBRA HA vaccine for H1N1 influenza viruses [published online February 24, 2016]. J Virol. doi:10.1128/JVI.03152-15.