Myers Mallory L, Conlon Michael T, Gallagher John R, Woolfork De'Marcus D, Khorrami Noah D, Park William B, Stradtman-Carvalho Regan K, Harris Audray K
Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 50 South Drive, Room 6351, Bethesda, MD, USA 20892.
Current Address: Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA 98195.
bioRxiv. 2024 Sep 12:2024.09.12.612748. doi: 10.1101/2024.09.12.612748.
Influenza virus nucleoprotein (NP) is one of the most conserved influenza proteins. Both NP antigen and anti-NP antibodies are used as reagents in influenza diagnostic kits, with applications in both clinical practice, and influenza zoonotic surveillance programs. Despite this, studies on the biochemical basis of NP diagnostic serology and NP epitopes are not as developed as for hemagglutinin (HA), the fast-evolving antigen which has been the critical component of current influenza vaccines. Here, we characterized the NP serology of mice, ferret, and human sera and the immunogenic effects of NP antigen presented as different structural complexes. Furthermore, we show that a classical anti-NP mouse mAb HB65 could detect NP in some commercial influenza vaccines. MAb HB65 bound a linear epitope with nanomolar affinity. Our analysis suggests that linear NP epitopes paired with their corresponding characterized detection antibodies could aid in designing and improving diagnostic technologies for influenza virus.
流感病毒核蛋白（NP）是最保守的流感蛋白之一。NP抗原和抗NP抗体均用作流感诊断试剂盒中的试剂，应用于临床实践和流感人畜共患病监测计划。尽管如此，关于NP诊断血清学和NP表位的生化基础的研究，不如对血凝素（HA）的研究那么深入，HA是快速进化的抗原，一直是当前流感疫苗的关键成分。在此，我们表征了小鼠、雪貂和人血清的NP血清学，以及以不同结构复合物形式呈现的NP抗原的免疫原性效应。此外，我们表明一种经典的抗NP小鼠单克隆抗体HB65可以检测某些商业流感疫苗中的NP。单克隆抗体HB65以纳摩尔亲和力结合线性表位。我们的分析表明，线性NP表位与其相应的特征性检测抗体配对，有助于设计和改进流感病毒的诊断技术。
