Adenoviral-Vectored Centralized Consensus Hemagglutinin Vaccine Provides Broad Protection against H2 Influenza a Virus

Authors

Erika M. Petro-Turnquist, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Brianna L. Bullard, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Matthew J. Pekarek, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Eric A. Weaver, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Matthew J. Pekarek https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3214-4220

Eric A. Weaver https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5029-0662

Date of this Version

2022

Citation

Petro-Turnquist, E.M.; Bullard, B.L.; Pekarek, M.J.;Weaver, E.A. Adenoviral-Vectored Centralized Consensus Hemagglutinin Vaccine Provides Broad Protection against H2 Influenza a Virus. Vaccines 2022, 10, 926. https://doi.org/10.3390/ vaccines10060926

Comments

Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license

Abstract

Several influenza pandemics have occurred in the past century, one of which emerged in 1957 from a zoonotic transmission of H2N2 from an avian reservoir into humans. This pandemic caused 2–4 million deaths and circulated until 1968. Since the disappearance of H2N2 from human populations, there has been waning immunity against H2, and this subtype is not currently incorporated into seasonal vaccines. However, H2 influenza remains a pandemic threat due to consistent circulation in avian reservoirs. Here, we describe a method of pandemic preparedness by creating an adenoviral-vectored centralized consensus vaccine design against human H2 influenza. We also assessed the utility of serotype-switching to enhance the protective immune responses seen with homologous prime-boosting strategies. Immunization with an H2 centralized consensus showed a wide breadth of antibody responses after vaccination, protection against challenge with a divergent human H2 strain, and significantly reduced viral load in the lungs after challenge. Further, serotype switching between two species C adenoviruses enhanced protective antibody titers after heterologous boosting. These data support the notion that an adenoviral-vectored H2 centralized consensus vaccine has the ability to provide broadly cross-reactive immune responses to protect against divergent strains of H2 influenza and prepare for a possible pandemic.