Construction of the vaccine strain of the influenza B virus with chimeric hemagglutinin to induce a cross-protective immune response

BACKGROUND: Influenza viruses cause worldwide epidemics, and the most effective method to prevent influenza disease is regular vaccinations. The development of new generation vaccines is aimed primarily at the formation of an immune response against a wide range of influenza viruses. One of the promising approaches is sequential vaccination with chimeric influenza viruses with identical stem domains of the hemagglutinin surface protein.

AIM: The development of an experimental vaccine strain of influenza B virus with chimeric hemagglutinin consisting of head and stem domains of influenza B viruses belonging to different genetic lineages.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A chimeric influenza hemagglutinin gene was obtained by genetic engineering from the genetic material of B/Victoria and B/Yamagata influenza strains. The gene was inserted into the vector for the reverse genetics of the influenza virus. The influenza B virus strain with chimeric hemagglutinin was obtained by transfection of Vero cells using an 8-plasmid system. The rest of the genes were obtained from the attenuated influenza B virus with cold-adapted and temperature-sensitive phenotypes. The biological properties of the obtained recombinant strain, its infectious titer in developing chicken embryos and MDCK cell culture were evaluated.

RESULTS: A recombinant vaccine strain has been successfully rescued. The head domain of the hemagglutinin of the virus is inherited from the B/Victoria influenza virus, and the stem domain from the B/Yamagata virus. The virus actively replicated in eggs and MDCK cells, with temperature-sensitive and cold-adapted phenotypes identical to classical live attenuated influenza vaccine viruses. The thermal stability of the chimeric hemagglutinin did not differ significantly from the thermal stability of the hemagglutinins of the donor viruses.

CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained indicate the possibility of creating a strain with chimeric hemagglutinin, fragments of which are inherited from different genetic lineages. The growth characteristics and biological properties of the strain make it a promising candidate for the experimental evaluation of the possibility of inducing a cross-protective immune response by sequential vaccination with vaccine strains with identical stem hemagglutinin domains.