Researchers at the University of Rochester have identified a protein in the immune system that appears to play a crucial role in protecting against deadly forms of influenza, and may be particularly important in protecting against emerging flu viruses like the avian flu. The researchers believe that a vaccine made with a live but weakened strain of flu virus such as the inhaled flu vaccine introduced last year may activate this part of the immune system and offer the best defense against avian flu.

In a paper being published in the February 20 issue of Immunity, the researchers report that a protein called VLA-1 enables the immune system to develop "peripheral immunity" by anchoring millions of virus-killing cells to tissues along the airways and lungs, where flu enters the body. The protein holds the cells in place and helps them survive there for long periods sometimes years where they stand ready to mount an immediate attack on the flu virus.

In a series of experiments, mice whose T cells were able to make the protein were able to develop peripheral immunity, and 90 percent of them survived after being infected with a potentially deadly strain of flu. Mice with T-cells engineered to lack the protein failed to develop peripheral immunity, and only 60 percent of them survived after being infected with the same flu virus.

The findings demonstrate that when confronted by a potentially deadly flu strain, an effective first strike by T cells in the lungs can mean the difference between life and death. To immunologist David Topham, Ph.D., assistant professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Rochester and lead author of the study, the findings reveal something else: a shortcoming in the world's most widely administered flu vaccines. Those vaccines, made with fragments of "killed" viruses, help the immune system make antibodies against the flu virus but do not induce peripheral immunity.

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Contact: Chris DiFrancesco
chris_difrancesco@urmc.rochester.edu
585 273-4790
University of Rochester Medical Center
19-Feb-2004

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