Structural Biology of Influenza Epitopes

National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases

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Abstract

Influenza viruses remain a major health burden due to their abilities to change the epitopes of their major surface glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA). Although conserved influenza epitopes have been identified in alpha helical regions of different influenza proteins such as HA and nucleoprotein (NP), there is a fundamental gap in engineering and correlating the spatial disposition of these conserved helical epitopes on nanoplatforms for the development of more efficacious influenza vaccines. Lack of such information represents important problems and until they are addressed optimal display of conserved influenza epitopes cannot be understood in molecular details. In FY 2025, we have made progress in characterizing antibodies binding to conserved helical regions of influenza proteins, such as HA and NP. These antibodies could provide promising opportunities to identify conserved cryptic epitopes that could be further used to engineer antigens to improve the efficacy of influenza vaccines. This work is significant and relevant to public health because influenza viruses are a large burden to human health.