New England harbor seal H3N8 influenza virus retains avian-like receptor specificity
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Hussein-2016-New England.pdf
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Author(s)
Krammer, Florian
Estrin, Michael
Viswanathan, Karthik
Stebbins, Nathan W.
Sasisekharan, Ram
Runstadler, Jonathan
Hussein, Islam
Ma, Eric Jinglong
Quinlan, Devin Scott
Date Issued
February 2016
Journal
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Hussein, Islam T. M., Florian Krammer, Eric Ma, Michael Estrin, Karthik Viswanathan, Nathan W. Stebbins, Devin S. Quinlan, Ram Sasisekharan, and Jonathan Runstadler. “New England Harbor Seal H3N8 Influenza Virus Retains Avian-Like Receptor Specificity.” Scientific Reports 6 (February 18, 2016): 21428.
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Final published version
Abstract
An influenza H3N8 virus, carrying mammalian adaptation mutations, was isolated from New England harbor seals in 2011. We sought to assess the risk of its human transmissibility using two complementary approaches. First, we tested the binding of recombinant hemagglutinin (HA) proteins of seal H3N8 and human-adapted H3N2 viruses to respiratory tissues of humans and ferrets. For human tissues, we observed strong tendency of the seal H3 to bind to lung alveoli, which was in direct contrast to the human-adapted H3 that bound mainly to the trachea. This staining pattern was also consistent in ferrets, the primary animal model for human influenza pathogenesis. Second, we compared the binding of the recombinant HAs to a library of 610 glycans. In contrast to the human H3, which bound almost exclusively to α-2,6 sialylated glycans, the seal H3 bound preferentially to α-2,3 sialylated glycans. Additionally, the seal H3N8 virus replicated in human lung carcinoma cells. Our data suggest that the seal H3N8 virus has retained its avian-like receptor binding specificity, but could potentially establish infection in human lungs.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Division of Comparative Medicine
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Engineering
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21428
