Open AccessVariation by lineage in serum antibody responses to influenza B virus infections
Author(s) -
Yiu Chung Lau,
Ranawaka A.P.M. Perera,
Vicky J. Fang,
Long Hei Luk,
Daniel K W Chu,
Peng Wu,
Ian Barr,
J S Malik Peiris,
Benjamin J. Cowling
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0241693
Subject(s) - hemagglutination assay , virology , titer , biology , virus , antibody , lineage (genetic) , antibody titer , influenza a virus , influenzavirus b , antigenicity , microbiology and biotechnology , orthomyxoviridae , immunology , gene , genetics
Two lineages of influenza B virus currently co-circulate and have distinct antigenicity, termed Victoria and Yamagata after the B/Victoria/2/87 and B/Yamagata/16/88 strains, respectively. We analyzed antibody titer dynamics following PCR-confirmed influenza B virus infection in a longitudinal community-based cohort study conducted in Hong Kong from 2009–2014 to assess patterns in changes in antibody titers to B/Victoria and B/Yamagata viruses following infections with each lineage. Among 62 PCR-confirmed cases, almost half had undetectable hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) antibody titers to the lineage of infection both pre-infection and post-infection. Among those infected with influenza B/Victoria who showed an HAI titer response after infection, we found strong rises to the lineage of infection, positive but smaller cross-lineage HAI titer boosts, a small dependence of HAI titer boosts on pre-infection titers, and a shorter half-life of HAI titers in adults. Our study is limited by the low HAI sensitivity for non-ether-treated IBV antigen and the incapacity of performing other assays with higher sensitivity, as well as the mismatch between the B/Yamagata lineage circulating strain and the assay strain in one of the study seasons.