Antibodies to influenza viruses that change every year may be produced using llama


by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos

Influenza virus is the "ultimate shape shifter " that always mutates to avoid the human immune system, but by searching for "the invariable part of the influenza virus" new therapeutic methods against all kinds of influenza virus are searched It is done.

Universal protection against influenza infection by a multidomain antibody to influenza hemagglutinin | Science
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6414/598



Llama blood clue to beating all flu - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46078989



The troublesome thing about influenza virus is that it mutates like every year in order to aim at the gap of the immune system, and the vaccine that worked may become ineffective the previous year. For this reason, scientists have been looking for ways to defeat all kinds of influenza viruses. Among them, "Collaborative research team of Scripps Research Institute's Integrated Structure & Computer Life Science Department and Jansen R & D focused on" Rama ".

Human antibodies tend to attack the tip of the virus, but this part is also the part where the influenza virus is the easiest to be changed, so if the influenza virus takes different forms the attack stops I will.

On the other hand, Lama's antibody is so small that it can not be compared with humans, so it is possible to attack deep parts where influenza virus is not changed.

To stimulate the immune response, the research team infected llama with multiple influenza viruses and searched for antibodies capable of attacking many influenza viruses. When this antibody was given to a mouse infected with a lethal dose of influenza virus, it was able to beat a virus except one of the 60 kinds of viruses. Moreover, the remaining one kind seems to be a type of influenza virus that does not infect human beings.

This research is still at an early stage, and the research team says he wishes to do more experiments before entering the clinical trial.

in Science,   Creature, Posted by logc_nt