Clade 2.3.4.4b but not historical clade 1 HA replicating RNA vaccine protects against bovine H5N1 challenge in mice

David W. Hawman (), Thomas Tipih, Eddie Hodge, E. Taylor Stone, Nikole Warner, Natalie McCarthy, Brian Granger, Kimberly Meade-White, Shanna Leventhal, Kiara Hatzakis, Stephanie Park, Karen Gaffney, Kyle Rosenke, Jesse H. Erasmus () and Heinz Feldmann ()
Additional contact information
David W. Hawman: Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Thomas Tipih: Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Eddie Hodge: HDT Bio
E. Taylor Stone: HDT Bio
Nikole Warner: HDT Bio
Natalie McCarthy: Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Brian Granger: HDT Bio
Kimberly Meade-White: Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Shanna Leventhal: Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Kiara Hatzakis: HDT Bio
Stephanie Park: HDT Bio
Karen Gaffney: HDT Bio
Kyle Rosenke: Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Jesse H. Erasmus: HDT Bio
Heinz Feldmann: Rocky Mountain Laboratories

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The ongoing circulation of influenza A H5N1 in the United States has raised concerns of a pandemic caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza. Although the United States has stockpiled and is prepared to produce millions of vaccine doses to address an H5N1 pandemic, currently circulating H5N1 viruses contain multiple mutations within the immunodominant head domain of hemagglutinin (HA) compared to the antigens used in stockpiled vaccines. It is unclear if these stockpiled vaccines will need to be updated to match the contemporary H5N1 strains. Here we show that a replicating RNA vaccine expressing the HA of an H5N1 isolated from a US dairy cow confers complete protection against homologous lethal challenge in mice. A repRNA encoding the HA of a clade 1 H5 from 2004 (A/Vietnam/1203/2004) as utilized by some stockpiled vaccines, confers only partial protection. Our data highlight the utility of nucleic acid vaccines to be rapidly updated to match emergent viruses of concern while demonstrating that contemporary bovine H5N1 viruses can evade immunity elicited by historical HA antigens.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55546-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-55546-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55546-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().