Pandemic, Bird, Epidemic Influenza Cure Soon?
New Antibody and Vaccine for Epidemic and Influenza Bird Flu H5N1?
Mar 2, 2009
Promising new research findings for the control of bird flu are based on a news release by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a report in Nature by Dr. Marasco and 18 co-investigators entitled "Structural and functional bases for broad-spectrum neutralization of avian and human influenza A viruses" in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 16, 265 - 273 (2009).
1918–1919 Pandemic Influenza and Other Influenza Epidemics
Each year millions of people in the world get influenza, a virus disease that causes considerable morbidity (illness) and mortality (death).
In 1918-1919, the time of the First World War, a major spread or pandemic of the influenza virus occurred on our planet and caused massive disease and 40 million deaths. More people were made ill and died from that virus than the actual direct casualties of the war and its armaments.
Since 1918 no pandemic as significant and deadly as that one has reoccurred. Yet, over the the span of some 90 years, disease and death due to varied strains of influenza occurs yearly.
The war against influenza is waged by immunization and limited anti-viral chemotherapy. Nevertheless, the virus is a tricky adversary since it can mutate (alter its genetic information). This means that each year scientists must track the virus, find out how it changed, and prepare a new vaccine mixture of killed influenza viruses.
Antigens and Antibodies and Influenza Viral Variation
Antigens are proteins, or protein complexes, that can induce corresponding host responses termed antibodies (protective and reacting protein responses to the antigens).
Influenza can mutate and change some of its coat (covering or exterior,structural features). The coat has "H" and "N" factors that enable the virus to stick to cells by "H" and also to release from cells by "N". Each factor is critical to the ability of the virus to get inside cells, take control, multiply and escape.
Because influenza can mutate and change and there have been recent significant outbreaks of bird flu, particularly in Asia, the National Institutes of Health in the USA funded several influenza studies, including the one in this report.
New Influenza Research Data and Breakthroughs
The new research reported here by Dr. Wayne Marasco and 18 colleagues took bird flu virus and inoculated the virus into mice. After several weeks spleen cells were recovered from these mice and fused with special tissue cultured cells to produce hybridomas. Some hybridomas, when screened, produced pure specific antibodies known as monoclonal antibodies (MAb) that neutralized and inactivated the bird flu. The antibodies were unique in two ways:
- The MAb inactivated the bird flu virus not at the typical upper H factor sites, instead they reacted with a lower H segment of the virus. This reaction neutralized the virus and inhibited viral entrance into the host cells.
- Also, these MAb, produced against bird flu influenza, also strongly protected animals and cells against all other tested group 1 influenza strains.
In summary, one specific type of antibody protected against different influenzas and a new, essential, but vulnerable, site of the influenza virus was discovered.
Implications and Promise for the Future
- A new, lifetime-protective flu vaccine is a distinct possibility.
- For seriously-ill people with active flu, life-saving, injectable antibodies might be used to save the unvaccinated.
- Further studies are needed in human subjects to determine if the protective effects observed in the lab animals and tissue cultures can be duplicated in people.
Soon a trip to a doctor or local clinic and one flu shot may provide immunity to last a lifetime and protect against all flu strains. Since almost everyone gets the flu at least once in their lifetime, this is hopeful research. Be alert – a new and better flu vaccine may be coming in five years or less.
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