Combinatorial immune refocusing within the influenza hemagglutinin head elicits cross-neutralizing antibody responses

The head domain of influenza hemagglutinin (HA) elicits potently neutralizing yet mostly strain-specific antibodies during infection and vaccination.

Here we evaluated a series of immunogens that combined several immunofocusing techniques for their ability to enhance the functional breadth of vaccine-elicited immune responses.

We designed a series of “trihead” nanoparticle immunogens that display native-like closed trimeric heads from the HAs of several H1N1 influenza viruses, including hyperglycosylated variants and hypervariable variants that incorporate natural and designed sequence diversity at key positions in the periphery of the receptor binding site (RBS).

Nanoparticle immunogens displaying triheads or hyperglycosylated triheads elicited higher HAI and neutralizing activity against vaccine-matched and -mismatched H1 viruses than corresponding immunogens lacking either trimer-stabilizing mutations or hyperglycosylation, indicating that both of these engineering strategies contributed to improved immunogenicity.

By contrast, mosaic nanoparticle display and antigen hypervariation did not significantly alter the magnitude or breadth of vaccine-elicited antibodies.

Serum competition assays and electron microscopy polyclonal epitope mapping revealed that the trihead immunogens, especially when hyperglycosylated, elicited a high proportion of antibodies targeting the RBS, as well as cross-reactive antibodies targeting a conserved epitope on the side of the head.

Our results yield important insights into antibody responses against the HA head and the ability of several structure-based immunofocusing techniques to influence vaccine-elicited antibody responses.

HIGHLIGHTS: Generalization of trihead antigen platform to several H1 hemagglutinins, including hyperglycosylated and hypervariable variants.

Trimer-stabilizing mutations in trihead nanoparticle immunogens lead to lower levels of non-neutralizing antibody responses in both mice and rabbits.

Hyperglycosylated triheads elicit higher antibody responses against broadly neutralizing epitopes.