Abstract

An immuno-informatics study was conducted to determine possible pre-existing T cellular immunity to the recently emerged swine-origin triple reassortant H3N2 variant (S-OtrH3N2v-2011) which acquired the matrix gene of influenza A (H1N1)pdm09. Given the genetic origin of S-OtrH3N2v-2011, our study focused on the hemagglutinin (HA) and matrix1 (M1) proteins to identify common and conserved T cell epitopes. We compared HA CD4+ T cell epitopes of S-OtrH3N2v-2011 with seasonal H3N2 (1968-2011)-HA proteins. M1 CD4+ and CD8+ T cell epitopes of S-OtrH3N2v-2011 were compared with the M1 proteins of seasonal H1N1 (1977-2009) and A (H1N1)pdm09 (2009-2011) subtypes. The results revealed a high conservancy of epitopes localized particularly on HA2 and the entire M1 protein. The overall cross reactivity of predicted CD4+ T cell epitopes with previously experimentally defined (Immuno Epitope Database) CD4+ T epitopes of HA and M1 proteins was ∼51%. CD8+ T cell cross-reactivity of ∼74% was documented for M1 protein. Analysis suggests possible pre-existing CD4+ T cell immunity to S-OtrH3N2v-2011 in the human population.

Links

Publisher Full Text

Authors

Duvvuri VR, Marchand-Austin A, Eshaghi A, Patel SN, Low DE, Gubbay JB

Institution

Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Source

Vaccine 30:42 2012 Sep 14 pg 6054-63

MeSH

Amino Acid Sequence
CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes
Computational Biology
Conserved Sequence
Cross Reactions
Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
Hemagglutinin Glycoproteins, Influenza Virus
Humans
Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype
Influenza A Virus, H3N2 Subtype
Reassortant Viruses
Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
Viral Matrix Proteins

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22877860