![]() Antibodies in person A, for example, may mount an attack in which antibodies focus on a single antigenic region. ![]() With varying success, antibodies recognize one or more of the four antigenic regions in hemagglutinin, the major outer coat protein of the flu virus. According to the prevailing theory, drift occurs as the virus is passed from person to person and is exposed to differing antibody attacks at each stop. "No one is sure exactly how the antigenic drift of flu viruses happens in people," says Dr. "This research elegantly combines modern genetic techniques with decades-old approaches to give us new insights into the mechanisms of antigenic drift and how influenza viruses elude the immune system," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Bennink, Ph.D., led the research team, whose findings appear in the current issue of Science. The findings in mice, using a strain of seasonal influenza virus first isolated in 1934, also suggest that antigenic drift might be slowed by increasing the number of children vaccinated against influenza. ![]() Now, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have proposed a new explanation for the evolutionary forces that drive antigenic drift. This shape-shifting, called antigenic drift, is why influenza vaccines - which are designed to elicit antibodies matched to each year's circulating virus strains - must be reformulated annually. Influenza viruses evade infection-fighting antibodies by constantly changing the shape of their major surface protein. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Each year’s flu vaccine contains three flu strains-two A strains and one B strain-that can change from year to year.
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