Influenza caused by infection of influenza viruses is still a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in human. Vaccination is the main defense against influenza virus, but current influenza trivalent or quatrivalent vaccines (TIV/QIV) would lose their effectiveness when vaccine strains are mismatched with circulating strains. Our early study showed that recombinant influenza Hx-TM HA proteins containing H3 HA transmembrane domain(TM) had improved immunogenicity and heterosubtypic protection over corresponding wild-type Hx-WT HA proteins. In present study, bivalent vaccines containing H3-WT+Hx-TM were investigated for their immune responses and heterosubtypic protection immunities. The data showed that the bivalent vaccines containing H3-WT and H5-TM or H1-TM had improved immune responses and heterosubtypic protection over the bivalent vaccines containing H3-WT and H5-WT or H1-WT respectively. These results demonstrated that the improved immune responses and heterosubtypic protection of Hx-TM HA proteins could be translated into bivalent vaccines, suggesting a feasible strategy of improving the immune responses and heterosubtypic protection of influenza multivalent vaccines such as TIV and QIV.
Keywords: Heterosubtypic protection; Influenza A virus; Multivalent vaccine.
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