Strategies targeting hemagglutinin cocktail as a potential universal influenza vaccine

Abstract

Vaccination is the most effective means of protecting people from influenza virus infection. The effectiveness of existing vaccines is very limited due to antigenic drift of the influenza virus. Therefore, there is a requirement to develop a universal vaccine that provides broad and long-lasting protection against influenza. CD8+ T-cell response played a vital role in controlling influenza virus infection, reducing viral load, and less clinical syndrome. In this study, we optimized the HA sequences of human seasonal influenza viruses (H1N1, H3N2, Victoria, and Yamagata) by designing multivalent vaccine antigen sets using a mosaic vaccine design strategy and genetic algorithms, and designed an HA mosaic cocktail containing the most potential CTL epitopes of seasonal influenza viruses. We then tested the recombinant mosaic antigen, which has a significant number of potential T-cell epitopes. Results from genetic evolutionary analyses and 3D structural simulations demonstrated its potential to be an effective immunogen. In addition, we have modified an existing neutralizing antibody-based seasonal influenza virus vaccine to include a component that activates cross-protective T cells, which would provide an attractive strategy for improving human protection against seasonal influenza virus drift and mutation and provide an idea for the development of a rationally designed influenza vaccine targeting T lymphocyte immunity.