Eternal battle

Will virologists be able to defeat the flu after 5 years or more? This is reflected by the Academician of the RAMS, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Head. Laboratory of the physiology of viruses of the Research Institute of virology named after DI. Ivanovsky Nikolai Veniaminovich Kaverin .

The variability of the superficial proteins of the influenza virus, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, forces to resort to a regular change in vaccines. At the same time, for each new vaccine, modern variants of the virus are used, which, however, does not always ensure the effectiveness of the vaccine against a new, just arising variant of the virus. Therefore, the search for vaccination routes that provides protection against a wide range of influenza viruses is very relevant.

One of the paths is vaccination leading to the immunity, which is not directed against rapidly changing surface proteins, but against internal proteins, which are different in the flu viruses and are not the same, they are very similar in the immunological aspect.

This direction arose for a long time, but the successes here are modest, since antivirus immunity is ensured in this case not by antibodies, but by T-lymphocytes, and this effect does not last long. Now the group of Dr. Sarah Gilbert from Oxford University is trying to increase the duration of such immunity. A group of immunologists in Melbourne develops a way to prevent the appearance of such virus mutants that will be stable in relation to immunity directed against one of the internal viral proteins. How promising this direction is still unclear.

Another direction is the search for antibodies that can neutralize the influenza viruses and of different subtypes. Dr. John Schrader from the University of British Colombia (Canada) described a human antibody, which has a wide spectrum, since it is associated with a section of hemagglutinin, a “stem” or “trunk” of a molecule that is not very different in different subtypes.

It should be noted that for the first time such an antibody was described in 1993 by a group of Japanese researchers. It was, however, not human, but a mouse antibody, which is not so important, since if such antibodies can produce the mouse body, then one can expect the same from the human body.

A wide range of action of this mouse antibodies was identified by a group of virologists at the Research Institute of Virology named after DI. Ivanovsky in Moscow. Professor Yu. A. Smirnov and researchers A.K. Gitelman and A. S. Lipatov showed that this antibody reacts with viruses of subtypes H1, H2 and H5 (and even with hemagglutin N6 subtype in his not quite mature form). These data were published in the Russian journal in 1999, and then, in the same year - in the publication, jointly with the Japanese researcher and a group of virologists from the Netherlands, in the English -language article in Acta Virologica.

It is possible that this direction, which was started by joint research of Japanese and Russian researchers and is now continued in a number of laboratories, including in the John Schrief laboratory, will be the most promising.

To combat influenza epidemics, it is very important not only the development of immunological agents, but also the development of antivirus chemotherapy. Effective chemotherapeutic agents are significant not only for the treatment of an individual patient, but also to limit the spread of the virus as a result of therapeutic effect. In addition, such funds can be used for emergency prevention for disease in the family or in a close team.

Unfortunately, there are no serious practical achievements in this area in the most recent years. Of the actively used tools, only two neuraminidase inhibitors are effective, of which one is used as an oral agent, and the other by inhalation of the drug. Adamantan preparations, for many years, were very useful for many years, lost their significance due to the acquisition of the stability of the flu viruses and the subtype H3N2, and since 2009 - the H1N1 virus, while the influenza B virus has never been sensitive to them.

It is possible, however, that in the future, the influenza A viruses, sensitive to the drugs of Adamantan, will again appear in circulation, so it is finally to remove them from production prematurely.

In conclusion, it should be recalled that many experimental data indicate different components of the influenza virus, including nucleoprotein and polymerase proteins, as promising targets for future chemotherapeutic agents.