Novel Platforms for the Development of a Universal Influenza Vaccine

Abstract

Despite advancements in immunotherapeutic approaches, influenza continues to cause severe illness, particularly among immunocompromised individuals, young children, and elderly adults. Vaccination is the most effective way to reduce rates of morbidity and mortality caused by influenza viruses. Frequent genetic shift and drift among influenza-virus strains with the resultant disparity between circulating and vaccine virus strains limits the effectiveness of the available conventional influenza vaccines. One approach to overcome this limitation is to develop a universal influenza vaccine that could provide protection against all subtypes of influenza viruses. Moreover, the development of a novel or improved universal influenza vaccines may be greatly facilitated by new technologies including virus-like particles, T-cell-inducing peptides and recombinant proteins, synthetic viruses, broadly neutralizing antibodies, and nucleic acid-based vaccines. This review discusses recent scientific advances in the development of next-generation universal influenza vaccines.

Assessment of enhanced influenza vaccination finds that FluAd conveys an advantage in mice and older adults

“…This can create a public health problem, such as recent H3N2 viruses, which have been more difficult to match and control with S‐IIV . Newly available vaccine approaches, including eIIVs, could be utilised to provide longer duration and breadth of protection, as broadly protecting vaccines are needed, but no universal influenza vaccine is licensed yet . We therefore compared the immunogenicity, mechanism of action and protective potential of three commercially available enhanced vaccines, FluAd (A‐eIIV), FluZone‐HD (H‐eIIV) and FluBlok (R‐eIIV), with a standard seasonal influenza vaccine, FluQuadri (S‐IIV), in humans and mice.…”

“…26 Newly available vaccine approaches, including eIIVs, could be utilised to provide longer duration and breadth of protection, as broadly protecting vaccines are needed, but no universal influenza vaccine is licensed yet. 27,28 We therefore compared the immunogenicity, mechanism of action and protective potential of three commercially available enhanced vaccines, FluAd (A-eIIV), FluZone-HD (H-eIIV) and FluBlok (R-eIIV), with a standard seasonal influenza vaccine, FluQuadri (S-IIV), in humans and mice. We found evidence to indicate that A-eIIV and H-eIIV may provide longer-lasting and broader cross-protection against influenza viruses than S-eIIV and R-eIIV.…”

<p>Immunoinformatics and Vaccine Development: An Overview</p>

“…Influenza viruses are able to thrive for a long while in a given human population. 111,112 The virus has a high mutation rate such that a once effective vaccine can easily lose efficacy. Antigenic variability is only one of the evidences of phenotypic variation in the biology of the Influenza virus.…”

B-cell restriction – an alternative piece to the puzzle

“…[19][20][21][22] All attempts to produce protective vaccines against HIV have failed and influenza continues to be a very challenging adversary. [19][20][21][22] There are numerous different strategies employed by viruses to evade immunity. The following examples are some tactics viruses use to interfere with the ability of B-cells to mount potent long-lasting cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies.…”

“…37 Influenza benefits from both genetic drift and shift. 20,38 These dynamic instabilities produce vast amounts of variant viruses, many of which may be non-productive progeny. However, with each replicative cycle of the virus some amino acid compositional variationsmutations, are produced that do not compromise viral infection.…”