Title

Authors

Affiliation

Bioinformatics and Data Management Division, National Institute of Virology, 20A, Dr Ambedkar Road, Pune- 411001, India

Email

cheriansarah@yahoo.co.in; *Corresponding author

Phone

+91 20 26006213

Fax

+91 20 26122669

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received March 14, 2011; Accepted March 16, 2011; Published June 23, 2011

The emergence of new strains of Influenza virus have caused several pandemics over the last hundred years with the latest being the H1N1 Swine flu pandemic of 2009. The Hemagglutinin (HA) protein of the Influenza virus is the primary target of human immune system and is responsible for generation of protective antibodies in humans. Mutations in this protein results in change in antigenic regions (antigenic drift) which consequently leads to loss of immunity in hosts even in vaccinated population (herd immunity). This necessitates periodic changes in the Influenza vaccine composition. In this paper, we investigate the molecular basis of the reported loss of herd immunity in vaccinated population (vaccine component: Influenza A/X-31/1968 (H3N2)) which resulted in the outbreak due to strain Influenza A/Port Chalmers/1/1973 (H3N2). Also, the effects of antigenic drift in HA protein (H3N2 vaccine strains 1968-2007) on the 3D structures as well as interactions with BH151, a 1968 antibody, has been studied. Rigid body molecular docking protocol has been used to study the antigen-antibody interactions. We believe that the present study will help in better understanding of host-pathogen interactions at the molecular level.

Keywords

Influenza virus, H3N2, hemagglutinin, antibody, molecular docking, antigenic drift, host-pathogen interactions, BH151.

Citation

Shil et al. Bioinformation 6(7): 266-270 (2011)
 

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.