No abstract

IgA antibodies on mucosal surfaces are known to play an important role in protection from influenza A virus (IAV) infection and are believed to be more potent than IgG for cross-protective immunity against IAVs of multiple hemagglutinin (HA) subtypes. However, in general, neutralizing antibodies specific to HA are principally HA subtype specific. Here, we focus on nonneutralizing but broadly cross-reactive HA-specific IgA antibodies. Recombinant IgG, monomeric IgA (mIgA), and polymeric secretory IgA (pSIgA) antibodies were generated based on the sequence of a mouse anti-HA monoclonal antibody (MAb) 5A5 that had no neutralizing activity but showed broad binding capacity to multiple HA subtypes. While confirming that there was no neutralizing activity of the recombinant MAbs against IAV strains A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 (H1N1), A/Adachi/2/1957 (H2N2), A/Hong Kong/483/1997 (H5N1), A/shearwater/South Australia/1/1972 (H6N5), A/duck/England/1/1956 (H11N6), and A/duck/Alberta/60/1976 (H12N5), we found that pSIgA, but not mIgA and IgG, significantly reduced budding and release of most of the viruses from infected cells. Electron microscopy demonstrated that pSIgA deposited newly produced virus particles on the surfaces of infected cells, most likely due to tethering of virus particles. Furthermore, we found that pSIgA showed significantly higher activity to reduce plaque sizes of the viruses than IgG and mIgA. These results suggest that nonneutralizing pSIgA reactive to multiple HA subtypes may play a role in intersubtype cross-protective immunity against IAVs. IMPORTANCE Mucosal immunity represented by pSIgA plays important roles in protection from IAV infection. Furthermore, IAV HA-specific pSIgA antibodies are thought to contribute to cross-protective immunity against multiple IAV subtypes. However, the mechanisms by which pSIgA exerts such versatile antiviral activity are not fully understood. In this study, we generated broadly cross-reactive recombinant IgG and pSIgA having the same antigen-recognition site and compared their antiviral activities in vitro. These recombinant antibodies did not show “classical” neutralizing activity, whereas pSIgA, but not IgG, significantly inhibited the production of progeny virus particles from infected cells. Plaque formation was also significantly reduced by pSIgA, but not IgG. These effects were seen in infection with IAVs of several different HA subtypes. Based on our findings, we propose an antibody-mediated host defense mechanism by which mucosal immunity may contribute to broad cross-protection from IAVs of multiple HA subtypes, including viruses with pandemic potential.

Bats are suspected to play important roles in the ecology of filoviruses, including ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. A cave-dwelling fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus, has been shown to be a reservoir of marburgviruses. Using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with the viral glycoprotein antigen, we detected immunoglobulin G antibodies specific to multiple filoviruses in 158 of 290 serum samples of R aegyptiacus bats captured in Zambia during the years 2014-2017. In particular, 43.8% of the bats were seropositive to marburgvirus, supporting the notion that this bat species continuously maintains marburgviruses as a reservoir. Of note, distinct peaks of seropositive rates were repeatedly observed at the beginning of rainy seasons, suggesting seasonality of the presence of newly infected individuals in this bat population. These data highlight the need for continued monitoring of filovirus infection in this bat species even in countries where filovirus diseases have not been reported.

Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1), a host receptor involved in the envelope glycoprotein (GP)-mediated entry of filoviruses into cells, is believed to be a major determinant of cell susceptibility to filovirus infection. It is known that proteolytically digested Ebola virus (EBOV) GP interacts with 2 protruding loops in domain C of NPC1. Using previously published structural data and the National Center for Biotechnology Information Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) database, we identified 10 naturally occurring missense SNPs in human NPC1. To investigate whether these SNPs affect cell susceptibility to filovirus infection, we generated Vero E6 cell lines stably expressing NPC1 with SNP substitutions and compared their susceptibility to vesicular stomatitis virus pseudotyped with filovirus GPs and infectious EBOV. We found that some of the substitutions resulted in reduced susceptibility to filoviruses, as indicated by the lower titers and smaller plaque/focus sizes of the viruses. Our data suggest that human NPC1 SNPs may likely affect host susceptibility to filoviruses.

Two highly pathogenic avian influenza virus strains, A/duck/Hokkaido/WZ83/2010 (H5N1) (WZ83) and A/duck/Hokkaido/WZ101/2010 (H5N1) (WZ101), which were isolated from wild ducks in Japan, were found to be genetically similar, with only two amino acid differences in their M1 and PB1 proteins at positions 43 and 317, respectively. We found that both WZ83 and WZ101 caused lethal infection in chickens but WZ101 killed them more rapidly than WZ83. Interestingly, ducks experimentally infected with WZ83 showed no or only mild clinical symptoms, whereas WZ101 was highly lethal. We then generated reassortants between these viruses and found that exchange of the M gene segment completely switched the pathogenic phenotype in both chickens and ducks, indicating that the difference in the pathogenicity for these avian species between WZ83 and WZ101 was determined by only a single amino acid in the M1 protein. It was also found that WZ101 showed higher pathogenicity than WZ83 in mice and that WZ83, whose M gene was replaced with that of WZ101, showed higher pathogenicity than wild-type WZ83, although this reassortant virus was not fully pathogenic compared to wild-type WZ101. These results suggest that the amino acid at position 43 of the M1 protein is one of the factors contributing to the pathogenicity of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in both avian and mammalian hosts.