@article{mbs:/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000365, author = "He, B. and Xia, S. and Yu, F. and Fu, Y. and Li, W. and Wang, Q. and Lu, L. and Jiang, S.", title = "Putative suppressing effect of IgG Fc-conjugated haemagglutinin (HA) stalk of influenza virus H7N9 on the neutralizing immunogenicity of Fc-conjugated HA head: implication for rational design of HA-based influenza vaccines", journal= "Journal of General Virology", year = "2016", volume = "97", number = "2", pages = "327-333", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000365", url = "https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000365", publisher = "Microbiology Society", issn = "1465-2099", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "The emergence of influenza A H7N9 in infection has posed a great threat to public health globally. Poor immunogenicity of H7N9 haemagglutinin (HA) is a major obstacle to the development of an effective H7N9 vaccine. Here, we found that the vaccine containing the H7HA head conjugated with IgG Fc (Hd-Fc) induced strong neutralizing antibody responses and protection against H7N9 infection, whilst the Fc-conjugated H7HA stalk (St-Fc)-based vaccine could not induce neutralizing antibodies, although the St-Fc-immunized mice were partially protected. The vaccines containing the full-length extracellular domain of HA conjugated with Fc and the mixture of Hd-Fc plus St-Fc induced significantly lower neutralizing antibody and haemagglutination inhibition titres than the Hd-Fc-based vaccine. These results suggest that the St-Fc may have inhibitory effects on the neutralizing immunogenicity of Hd-Fc. Therefore, the neutralizing domain(s), such as the receptor-binding domain, in the HA head should be kept and the non-neutralizing domain(s) in the HA stalk with the ability to potentially suppress the neutralizing immunogenicity of HA head should be removed from Fc-conjugated HA-based influenza vaccines to increase the neutralizing antibody response.", }