University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 Dissecting Human Antibody Responses Against Influenza A Viruses And Antigenic Changes That Facilitate Immune Escape Seth J. Zost University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Allergy and Immunology Commons, Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons, Medical Immunology Commons, and the Virology Commons Recommended Citation Zost, Seth J., "Dissecting Human Antibody Responses Against Influenza A Viruses And Antigenic Changes That Facilitate Immune Escape" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 3211. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3211 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3211 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Dissecting Human Antibody Responses Against Influenza A Viruses And Antigenic Changes That Facilitate Immune Escape Abstract Influenza A viruses pose a serious threat to public health, and seasonal circulation of influenza viruses causes substantial morbidity and mortality. Influenza viruses continuously acquire substitutions in the surface glycoproteins hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). These substitutions prevent the binding of pre-existing antibodies, allowing the virus to escape population immunity in a process known as antigenic drift. Due to antigenic drift, individuals can be repeatedly infected by antigenically distinct influenza strains over the course of their life. Antigenic drift undermines the effectiveness of our seasonal influenza accinesv and our vaccine strains must be updated on an annual basis due to antigenic changes. In order to understand antigenic drift it is essential to know the sites of antibody binding as well as the substitutions that facilitate viral escape from immunity.