Immune escape mutants of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 selected using polyclonal sera: identification of key amino acids in the HA protein

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 25;9(2):e84628. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0084628. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Evolution of Avian Influenza (AI) viruses--especially of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 subtype--is a major issue for the poultry industry. HPAI H5N1 epidemics are associated with huge economic losses and are sometimes connected to human morbidity and mortality. Vaccination (either as a preventive measure or as a means to control outbreaks) is an approach that splits the scientific community, due to the risk of it being a potential driving force in HPAI evolution through the selection of mutants able to escape vaccination-induced immunity. It is therefore essential to study how mutations are selected due to immune pressure. To this effect, we performed an in vitro selection of mutants from HPAI A/turkey/Turkey/1/05 (H5N1), using immune pressure from homologous polyclonal sera. After 42 rounds of selection, we identified 5 amino acid substitutions in the Haemagglutinin (HA) protein, most of which were located in areas of antigenic importance and suspected to be prone to selection pressure. We report that most of the mutations took place early in the selection process. Finally, our antigenic cartography studies showed that the antigenic distance between the selected isolates and their parent strain increased with passage number.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Amino Acid Substitution / genetics
  • Amino Acid Substitution / immunology
  • Amino Acids / genetics*
  • Amino Acids / immunology
  • Animals
  • Birds / immunology
  • Birds / virology
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Hemagglutinin Glycoproteins, Influenza Virus / genetics*
  • Hemagglutinin Glycoproteins, Influenza Virus / immunology
  • Immune Sera / immunology*
  • Influenza A Virus, H5N1 Subtype / genetics*
  • Influenza A Virus, H5N1 Subtype / immunology*
  • Influenza in Birds / immunology*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Mutation / genetics*
  • Mutation / immunology
  • Vaccination / methods

Substances

  • Amino Acids
  • Hemagglutinin Glycoproteins, Influenza Virus
  • Immune Sera

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Impulse Veterinary Avian Influenza Research in the Netherlands program of the Economic Structure Enhancement Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.