Pandemic influenza vaccine: exploiting the conserved HA cleavage site

流感病毒需要裂解其表面尖峰蛋白，血凝素或HA，才能变得成熟和具有传染性。该项目的目的是生产一种疫苗，该疫苗将阻止这种裂解，从而使病毒不具传染性。为了实现这一点，我们将使用病毒HA尖峰蛋白的合成片段(称为多肽)模拟其切割位置来免疫小鼠。这将产生特定的抗体，当病毒在受感染的细胞内时，这些抗体将结合到裂解部位，从而防止病毒尖峰蛋白被裂解并保持未成熟。这一想法特别适合于对抗禽流感，因为所有致病的禽流感病毒都会在受感染的细胞内切割HA尖峰蛋白。

Influenza virus needs to cleave its surface spike protein, hemagglutinin or HA, to become mature and infectious. This project is aimed at producing a vaccine that will block the cleavage thus rendering the virus non-infectious. To achieve this, we will use synthetic fragments (called peptides) of the viral HA spike protein mimicking its cleavage site to immunize mice. This will produce specific antibodies that will bind to the cleavage site while the virus is inside the infected cell, thus preventing the viral spike protein from being cleaved and remain immature. This idea is particularly suited to fight the bird flu, as all pathogenic bird influenza viruses cleave HA spike proteins within the infected cell.