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Review
. 2020 Jul 23;8(3):409.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines8030409.

Influenza Neuraminidase: A Neglected Protein and Its Potential for a Better Influenza Vaccine

Luca T Giurgea  1 , David M Morens  2 , Jeffery K Taubenberger  3 , Matthew J Memoli  1
Affiliations
Review

Influenza Neuraminidase: A Neglected Protein and Its Potential for a Better Influenza Vaccine

Luca T Giurgea et al. Vaccines (Basel). .

Abstract

Neuraminidase (NA) is an influenza surface protein that helps to free viruses from mucin-associated decoy receptors and to facilitate budding from infected cells. Experiments have demonstrated that anti-NA antibodies protect animals against lethal influenza challenge by numerous strains, while decreasing pulmonary viral titers, symptoms, and lung lesions. Studies in humans during the influenza A/H3N2 pandemic and in healthy volunteers challenged with influenza A/H1N1 showed that anti-NA immunity reduced symptoms, nasopharyngeal viral shedding, and infection rates. Despite the benefits of anti-NA immunity, current vaccines focus on immunity against hemagglutinin and are not standardized to NA content leading to limited and variable NA immunogenicity. Purified NA has been shown to be safe and immunogenic in humans. Supplementing current vaccines with NA may be a simple strategy to improve suboptimal effectiveness. Immunity against NA is likely to be an important component of future universal influenza vaccines.

Keywords: influenza; neuraminidase; universal influenza vaccine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Importance of neuraminidase on influenza viral lifecycle (A) and the effect of neuraminidase inhibiting antibodies (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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