Okamoto Shigefumi
National Institute of Biomedical Innovation, Laboratory of Virology and Vaccinology, Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan.
Yakugaku Zasshi. 2013;133(3):313-21. doi: 10.1248/yakushi.12-00237-4.
Endemic infection by seasonal influenza virus usually occurs every winter season. Inside the host, human influenza viruses frequently undergo various point mutations at antigenic regions, in response to antibody pressure. Furthermore, the influenza virus has undergone frequent antigenic shifts for at least 100 years, some of which have caused influenza pandemics. In Japan, intramuscular immunization with influenza split-virion vaccines has been used to prevent seasonal influenza virus infections. Unfortunately, the efficacy of the current influenza vaccine immunization method is limited, even against viruses belonging to the same clade. Furthermore, the current vaccines are not expected to be protective against antigenically shifted viruses. Therefore, new approaches to vaccine development are needed to protect human populations against a potential pandemic virus. We are studying novel influenza vaccine designs to resolve the above weaknesses of the current influenza vaccines. I will describe our vaccine studies, "Cross-protection by mucosal immunization," and, "Preparation of seed virus strains to produce vaccines for possible pandemic influenza," in this symposium.
季节性流感病毒的地方性感染通常每年冬季发生。在宿主体内，人类流感病毒经常在抗原区域发生各种点突变，以应对抗体压力。此外，至少100年来，流感病毒频繁发生抗原转变，其中一些转变引发了流感大流行。在日本，使用流感裂解病毒疫苗进行肌肉注射免疫来预防季节性流感病毒感染。不幸的是，目前流感疫苗免疫方法的效果有限，即使针对属于同一进化枝的病毒也是如此。此外，目前的疫苗预计对发生抗原转变的病毒没有保护作用。因此，需要新的疫苗开发方法来保护人类免受潜在大流行病毒的侵害。我们正在研究新型流感疫苗设计，以解决当前流感疫苗的上述弱点。在本次研讨会上，我将介绍我们的疫苗研究，“黏膜免疫的交叉保护”以及“制备用于可能的大流行性流感疫苗的种子病毒株”。
