Cross-Lineage Influenza B and Heterologous Influenza A Antibody Responses in Vaccinated Mice: Immunologic Interactions and B/Yamagata Dominance

The annually reformulated trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) includes both influenza A/subtypes (H3N2 and H1N1) but only one of two influenza B/lineages (Yamagata or Victoria). In a recent series of clinical trials to evaluate prime-boost response across influenza B/lineages, influenza-naïve infants and toddlers originally primed with two doses of 2008–09 B/Yamagata-containing TIV were assessed after two doses of B/Victoria-containing TIV administered in the subsequent 2009–10 and 2010–11 seasons. In these children, the Victoria-containing vaccines strongly recalled antibody to the initiating B/Yamagata antigen but induced only low B/Victoria antibody responses. To further evaluate this unexpected pattern of cross-lineage vaccine responses, we conducted additional immunogenicity assessment in mice. In the current study, mice were primed with two doses of 2008–09 Yamagata-containing TIV and subsequently boosted with two doses of 2010–11 Victoria-containing TIV (Group-Yam/Vic). With the same vaccines, we also assessed the reverse order of two-dose Victoria followed by two-dose Yamagata immunization (Group-Vic/Yam). The Group-Yam/Vic mice showed strong homologous responses to Yamagata antigen. However, as previously reported in children, subsequent doses of Victoria antigen substantially boosted Yamagata but induced only low antibody response to the immunizing Victoria component. The reverse order of Group-Vic/Yam mice also showed low homologous responses to Victoria but subsequent heterologous immunization with even a single dose of Yamagata antigen induced substantial boost response to both lineages. For influenza A/H3N2, homologous responses were comparably robust for the differing TIV variants and even a single follow-up dose of the heterologous strain, regardless of vaccine sequence, substantially boosted antibody to both strains. For H1N1, two doses of 2008–09 seasonal antigen significantly blunted response to two doses of the 2010–11 pandemic H1N1 antigen. Immunologic interactions between influenza viruses considered antigenically distant and in particular the cross-lineage influenza B and dominant Yamagata boost responses we have observed in both human and animal studies warrant further evaluation

Surface physical condition of asteroid Ryugu using close-up optical and thermal images

In 2018, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft [1] successfully conducted some descend operations toward Ryugu’s surface. They included MINERVA rover release in September, MASCOT lander release and two touchdown rehearsals in October. During these operations, we acquired high-resolved optical and thermal images from altitudes below 100 m, us- ing Optical Navigation Camera (ONC-T) and Ther- mal Infrared Imager (TIR), respectively. Close-up optical images by ONC-T show detailed physical conditions of the surface materials, such as particle size distribution of pebbles, surface morphol- ogy of small boulders and craters. Moreover, close-up thermal images by TIR indicate thermophysical prop- erties of the surface materials and its regional differ- ence, which cannot be resolved by higher altitude observations (e.g., home-position observations from 20 km altitude). Combination between optical and thermal observations is of great importance to under- stand the nature of the asteroid surface materials. In this study, we investigate the surface particle size from close-up ONC images. Thermophysical property of the surface component materials inferred from TIR images is also discussed, especially for the range observed for the thermal inertia of boulders

Nonviral heterogeneous sequences are present at the 5' ends of one species of snowshoe hare bunyavirus S complementary RNA.

Analyses of the 5' ends of snowshoe hare bunyavirus plus sense S RNA species (including mRNA) recovered from infected cells have revealed two types of termini. These include ends that are essentially exact copies of the 3' end of the viral S RNA and others that are similar, but additionally have 13-14 nucleotide extensions that are heterogeneous in sequence. The former probably represent replicative plus sense RNA species, the latter mRNA species that have host cell derived primer sequences