{"doi":"10.3390/pathogens13020097","title":"Multivalent Epigraph Hemagglutinin Vaccine Protects against Influenza B Virus in Mice","abstract":"Influenza B virus is a respiratory pathogen that contributes to seasonal epidemics, accounts for approximately 25% of global influenza infections, and can induce severe disease in young children. While vaccination is the most commonly used method of preventing influenza infections, current vaccines only induce strain-specific responses and have suboptimal efficacy when mismatched from circulating strains. Further, two influenza B virus lineages have been described, B/Yamagata-like and B/Victoria-like, and the limited cross-reactivity between the two lineages provides an additional barrier in developing a universal influenza B virus vaccine. Here, we report a novel multivalent vaccine using computationally designed Epigraph hemagglutinin proteins targeting both the B/Yamagata-like and B/Victoria-like lineages. When compared to the quadrivalent commercial vaccine, the Epigraph vaccine demonstrated increased breadth of neutralizing antibody and T cell responses. After lethal heterologous influenza B virus challenge, mice immunized with the Epigraph vaccine were completely protected against both weight loss and mortality. The superior cross-reactive immunity conferred by the Epigraph vaccine immunogens supports their continued investigation as a universal influenza B virus vaccine.","journal":"Pathogens","year":2024,"id":475327,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9528,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1312417,"name":"Brigette Corder Kampfe","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1312418,"name":"Amber Gadeken","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":899486,"name":"Matthew J. Pekarek","orcid":"0000-0003-3214-4220","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":395927,"name":"Eric A. Weaver","orcid":"0000-0002-5029-0662","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":899487,"name":"Erika Petro-Turnquist","orcid":"0000-0001-7532-2256","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":54,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:16.992586Z","pmid":"38392835","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}