Oral Poster & Poster Presentation 9th Australasian Virology Society Meeting 2017

Enhancement of influenza-specific immunity following intranasal co-administration of whole inactivated Influenza and pneumococcal vaccines (#173)

Shannon C David 1 , James C Paton 1 , Shaun R McColl 1 , Mohammed Alsharifi 1
  1. The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Influenza A virus is a recurrent global health issue, and poses a continual challenge for vaccine design and manufacture. We have previously published our approach to circumvent the issues associated with current inactivated Influenza vaccines, whereby gamma-irradiation is used to inactivate whole Influenza A virus. Our whole inactivated vaccine, termed γ-Flu, provides robust protection against both homotypic and heterosubtypic influenza challenge strains [1, 2]. This cross-protection is primarily mediated by cytotoxic CD8+ T-cell responses [3]. In addition, we have previously reported our novel gamma-irradiated pneumococcal vaccine (γ-PN), which provides serotype independent protection against Streptococcus pneumoniae [4, 5]. In the current study, we illustrate that co-administration of a whole inactivated pneumococcal vaccine (γ-PN) with γ-Flu enhances influenza-specific immunity. Specifically, intranasal co-administration of both γ-PN and γ-Flu resulted in enhanced protection against a severe heterosubtypic influenza challenge, in comparison to vaccination with γ-Flu alone. Our preliminary data suggest that the adjuvant activity of γ-PN is associated with enhanced toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) signalling and IFN-α. As a large portion of Influenza-related fatalities are due to secondary bacterial infection, this co-vaccination approach could be invaluable in the face of future emerging Influenza pandemics.

  1. Alsharifi, M., Furuya, Y., Bowden, T.R., Lobigs, M., Koskinen, A., et al., 2009. Intranasal flu vaccine protective against seasonal and H5N1 avian influenza infections. PLoS One, 4(4): p. e5336.
  2. David, S.C., Lau, J., Singleton, E.V., Babb, R., Davies, J., et al., 2017. The effect of gamma-irradiation conditions on the immunogenicity of whole-inactivated Influenza A virus vaccine. Vaccine, 35(7): p. 1071-1079.
  3. Furuya, Y., Chan, J., Regner, M., Lobigs, M., Koskinen, A., et al., 2010. Cytotoxic T cells are the predominant players providing cross-protective immunity induced by {gamma}-irradiated influenza A viruses. J Virol, 84(9): p. 4212-21.
  4. Babb, R., Chen, A., Hirst, T.R., Kara, E.E., McColl, S.R., et al., 2016. Intranasal vaccination with gamma-irradiated Streptococcus pneumoniae whole-cell vaccine provides serotype-independent protection mediated by B-cells and innate IL-17 responses. Clin Sci (Lond), 130(9): p. 697-710.
  5. Babb, R., Chen, A., Ogunniyi, A.D., Hirst, T.R., Kara, E.E., et al., 2017. Enhanced protective responses to a serotype-independent pneumococcal vaccine when combined with an inactivated influenza vaccine. Clin Sci (Lond), 131(2): p. 169-180.