Defining and Manipulating B Cell Immunodominance Hierarchies to Elicit Broadly Neutralizing Antibody Responses against Influenza Virus
Keywords
1. Antibody repertoire: A collection of different antibodies that an individual's immune system can produce.
2. Adaptive immune system: A part of the immune system that adapts to fight specific pathogens by producing antibodies.
3. Antigen: A substance that the immune system recognizes and responds to, such as a virus or bacteria.
4. Immunodominance: The phenomenon where certain antigens or antigenic determinants dominate the immune response.
5. Influenza virus: A virus that causes influenza (flu).
6. Affinity maturation: A process by which immune cells refine the antibodies they produce to better target a specific antigen.
7. Hemagglutinin (HA): A protein on the surface of the influenza virus that is targeted by vaccines.
8. Immunization protocols: Methods or procedures used to immunize an individual against a specific disease.
9. Serum antibody responses: The production of antibodies in the blood in response to an antigen.
10. Broadly neutralizing antibodies: Antibodies that can neutralize a wide range of strains of a virus.
11. Transgenic mice: Mice that have had genes from another species inserted into their genome.
12. Humoral output: The production of antibodies by the immune system.
Summary:
A computational model was developed to understand the patterns of immunodominance in the antibody response to influenza's hemagglutinin (HA), revealing that some antigens distract the immune system from more crucial targets; based on this, immunization protocols were designed and tested on humanized transgenic mice, demonstrating the potential to guide the immune response towards desired targets and achieve engineered immunity.