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Flu News for Senior Citizens
Yearly Flu Shot Senior Citizens Get May Offer Some
Protection from H5N1
St. Jude studies show N1 protein in seasonal flu
vaccine can trigger an antibody response to avian flu virus
Feb. 13, 2007 – The annual flu shot that Medicare
provides and every senior citizen should be getting, may also offer
protection from the bird flu virus, H5N1, at least for some people,
according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
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They found that the virus protein N1, one of two or
more proteins present in the annual influenza shot, can act as a vaccine
itself and trigger some cross protection against H5N1 in mice; and that
some human volunteers already had antibodies directed against the same
part of this virus.
"The jury is still out on whether the seasonal
influenza vaccine is definitely a reliable way to offer people some
protection from H5N1," said Richard J. Webby, Ph.D., assistant member in
the Virology division of the Department of Infectious Diseases at St.
Jude.
"But our initial results suggest to us that this is
a research trail worth following."
Webby is senior author of the report that appears
in the Feb. 13 issue of the online journal PLoS Medicine at
www.plosmedicine.org.
The key to the apparent cross protection against
H5N1 provided by the human influenza vaccine appears to be the
antibodies produced in response to N1, a variety of the protein
neuraminidase-one of the two proteins on the surface of the virus.
While the amount of the other protein in the
vaccine, hemagglutinin, or "H," occurs in large amounts, the amount of
N1 can vary widely depending on the company that produces the vaccine.
If the initial findings of the St. Jude study are
confirmed, there may be a greater interest in examining the amount of
neuraminidase in yearly influenza vaccines, according to Matthew
Sandbulte, Ph.D., a post- doctoral fellow at the Food and Drug
Administration, who did much of the work on this project.
"Hemagglutinin is more abundant than neuraminidase
on viruses and is a better target for protective immunity, so current
vaccines are designed to trigger immune responses mostly to
hemagglutinin," he said.
"That is why vaccines contain standard amounts of
hemagglutinin, but varying amounts of neuraminidase. But if further
research confirms that the N1 part of the influenza vaccine offers some
cross protection against H5N1, it will be desirable to have a better
idea of the amount of N1 present in these vaccines."
Editor's Notes:
Other authors of this study include Adrianus C. M.
Boon (St. Jude); Gretchen S. Jimenez and Larry R. Smith (Vical, San
Diego, Calif.) and John J. Treanor (University of Rochester, Rochester,
N.Y.).
This work was supported in part by the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (National Institutes of
Health) and ALSAC.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is
internationally recognized for its pioneering work in finding cures and
saving children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. Founded by
late entertainer Danny Thomas and based in Memphis, Tenn., St. Jude
freely shares its discoveries with scientific and medical communities
around the world. No family ever pays for treatments not covered by
insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. St.
Jude is financially supported by ALSAC, its fundraising organization.
For more information, please visit www.stjude.org.
Web sites:
http://www.stjude.org
http://www.plosmedicine.org
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