Tan, S.; Gutiérrez, A. H.; Gauger, P. C.; Opriessnig, T.; Bahl, J.; Moise, L.; De Groot, A. S. Quantifying the Persistence of Vaccine-Related T Cell Epitopes in Circulating Swine Influenza A Strains from 2013–2017. Vaccines, 2021, 9, 468. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9050468.
Tan, S.; Gutiérrez, A. H.; Gauger, P. C.; Opriessnig, T.; Bahl, J.; Moise, L.; De Groot, A. S. Quantifying the Persistence of Vaccine-Related T Cell Epitopes in Circulating Swine Influenza A Strains from 2013–2017. Vaccines, 2021, 9, 468. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9050468.
Tan, S.; Gutiérrez, A. H.; Gauger, P. C.; Opriessnig, T.; Bahl, J.; Moise, L.; De Groot, A. S. Quantifying the Persistence of Vaccine-Related T Cell Epitopes in Circulating Swine Influenza A Strains from 2013–2017. Vaccines, 2021, 9, 468. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9050468.
Tan, S.; Gutiérrez, A. H.; Gauger, P. C.; Opriessnig, T.; Bahl, J.; Moise, L.; De Groot, A. S. Quantifying the Persistence of Vaccine-Related T Cell Epitopes in Circulating Swine Influenza A Strains from 2013–2017. Vaccines, 2021, 9, 468. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9050468.
Abstract
When swine flu vaccines and circulating influenza A virus (IAV) strains are poorly matched, vaccine-induced antibodies may not protect from infection. Highly conserved T cell epitopes may, however, have a disease-mitigating effect. The degree of T cell epitope conservation among circulating strains and vaccine strains can vary, which may also explain differences in vaccine efficacy. Here, we evaluate a previously developed conserved T cell epitope-based vaccine and determine the persistence of T cell epitope conservation over time. We used a pair-wise homology score to define conservation between the vaccine’s swine leukocyte antigen (SLA) class I and II-restricted epitopes and T cell epitopes found in 1,272 swine IAV strains sequenced between 2013 and 2017. Twenty-four of the 48 total T cell epitopes included in the epitope-based vaccine were highly conserved and found in >1,000 circulating swine IAV strains over the five-year period. In contrast, commercial swine IAV vaccines developed in 2013 exhibited declining conservation with the circulating IAV strains over the same five-year period. Conserved T cell epitope vaccines may be useful adjunct for commercial swine flu vaccines and to improve protection against influenza when antibodies are not cross-reactive.
Keywords
Swine IAV; Immunoinformatics; T cell epitope conservation
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
