Cross-protection against Microvariants of Influenza Virus Type B by Vaccinia Viruses Expressing Haemagglutinins from Egg- or MDCK Cell-derived Subpopulations of Influenza Virus Type B/England/222/82

Abstract

SUMMARYB/Singapore/222/79-1ike influenza viruses isolated from three patients during the winter of 1981 to 1982 and cultured in either embryonated hens' eggs or MDCK cells were studied. Sequence analysis indicated that the haemagglutinin (HA) genes of the six virus preparations contained at least four distinct HA1 sequences which differed by up to six amino acids. Only one pair of viruses had amino acid differences between the egg-and MDCK cell-derived viral subpopulations and this change did not affect a glycosylation site. Mice infected with previously described recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing either the egg-or MDCK cell-derived HA of B/England/222/82 developed neutralizing antibodies against all of the 1982 type B viruses and were protected against intranasal challenge with these viruses. Therefore, in this model system, the minor sequence variation between the HAs of egg-and MDCK cell-derived influenza B/England/222/82 virus had no detectable effect on the induction of crossprotection.In order to compare the immune response induced by influenza virus haemagglutinins (HAs) differing by a single amino acid, we cloned the genes for a pair of such HA variants and expressed them in vaccinia virus (Rota et al., 1987). These variant HA genes were previously described as being present in either egg-derived or MDCK cell-derived subpopulations of a single isolate of influenza B/England/222/82 virus (B/Eng) (Schild et al., 1983). The single amino acid difference between the HAs was found at residue 198, which is near the receptor-binding site on the distal tip of the HA1 portion of the molecule. This change resulted in the loss of a specific N-linked glycosylation site that was present on the HA of virus from the MDCK cellderived subpopulation (Robertson et al., 1985). Our previous work has shown that mice vaccinated with the recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing either of the variant HAs were equivalently protected from infection after challenge by each of the B/Eng virus subpopulations (Rota et al

Influenza A virus haemagglutinin polymorphism: pleiotropic antigenic variants of A/Shanghai/11/87 (H3N2) virus selected as high yield reassortants

“…Comparisons among these studies and between these studies and our own are confounded by differences in viruses, host species and experimental design. Our finding that BALB/c mice cannot detect antigenic differences in X-99 and X-99a as measured either by HI antibody response or crossprotection are in accord with the studies in A/J mice by Rota et al (1989) with vaccinia virus recombinants containing variant influenza B virus HAs. Katz et al (1987) also demonstrated cross-protection of ferrets immunized by infection with antigenically distinguishable MDCK cell-and egg-grown variants.…”

Domestic Pigs Are Susceptible to Infection with Influenza B Viruses

“…Actively circulating IBVs are divided into two genetically and antigenically distinct lineages, represented by B/Yamagata/16/1988 and B/Victoria/2/1987 viruses (14,21,22,37,38). Antigenic differences between the lineages can be readily revealed by the hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay (35).…”

A host restriction-based selection system for influenza haemagglutinin transfectant viruses.

“…This destroyed the glycosylation site at aa position 126 in the MDCK variant. Previous studies by other workers have also noted changes in glycosylation involved in egg adaptation (Oxford et al, 1991 ;Rota et al, 1989 ;Wang et al, 1989). The asparagine at aa position 145 in the Vero variants was found to be lysine in the MDCK variant.…”