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Broadly protective influenza vaccines that do not require annual reimmunization would be of great benefit. Recent research has shown that several natural proteins can self-assemble into nanoparticles that are highly effective in immune stimulation. Investigators at the National Institutes of Health have now created and evaluated a novel nanoparticle H1 influenza A vaccine.
The researchers fused the ectodomain of a 1999 influenza A H1 hemagglutinin (HA) to Helicobacter pylori ferritin. This HA–ferritin fusion protein, expressed in mammalian cells, self-assembled into nanoparticles that had eight symmetrically arranged trimeric viral surface spikes. Immunization of mice with the HA–ferritin nanoparticles induced higher HA inhibition, neutraliz…