In vitro evolution of influenza B virus under selection with human antibodies
Brooke A. Francisco1, Lisa M. Stempak3, and Stephen J. Stray2
1Mississippi INBRE Research Scholar, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson MS
2Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson MS
3Department of Pathology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson MS
Each year, the human population is significantly affected by a major human pathogen, Influenza. Influenza is a viral disease that attacks the respiratory system. There are two main types: A and B. They both cause seasonal epidemics, but Influenza A is more common and has been more extensively studied. We have previously shown that neutralizing anti-influenza B antibodies were common among a collection of discarded, de-identified patient sera obtained from the University of Mississippi Medical Center Hematology Lab (Mariah Prather, LMS, and SJS, unpublished). We hypothesize that, the antibodies will allow us to select variant influenza B strains. To test our hypothesis, we will do this in two parts. The first part is to serially passage the influenza B virus B/Shanghai/(361/2002) in the presence of four different human antisera. The second part is to use 22 different primers to amplify and sequence the eight segments of the influenza B virus genome (E Hoffmann, K Mahmood, C-F Yang, RG Webster, HB Greenberg, and G Kemble. Proc Nat’l Acad Sci USA 99: 11411-6, 2002). In contrast to previous findings, which showed rapid adaptation of influenza A virus to growth in the presence of a neutralizing polyclonal chicken antiserum (RR Thangavel, A Reed, EW Norcross, SN Dixon, ME Marquart, and SJ Stray, Virol J. 18:8, 2011), our data for part 1 suggests minimal virus growth in the presence of each of the 4 antisera tested. Our preliminary data for part 2 suggests that there is a mixture of sequences in both the HA and NA gene sequences of the input virus stock. All eight gene segments will be sequenced after five passages of selection to determine what adaptations, if any, have occurred.