Near real-time data on the human neutralizing antibody landscape to influenza virus to inform vaccine-strain selection in September 2025
The hemagglutinin of human influenza virus evolves rapidly to erode neutralizing antibody immunity. Twice per year, new vaccine strains are selected with the goal of providing maximum protection against the viruses that will be circulating when the vaccine is administered ~8-12 months in the future. To help inform this selection, here we quantify how the antibodies in recently collected human sera neutralize viruses with hemagglutinins from contemporary influenza strains. Specifically, we use a high-throughput sequencing-based neutralization assay to measure how 188 human sera collected from Oct 2024 to April 2025 neutralize 140 viruses representative of the H3N2 and H1N1 strains circulating in humans as of the summer of 2025. This data set, which encompasses 26 148 neutralization titre measurements, provides a detailed portrait of the current human neutralizing antibody landscape to influenza A virus. The full data set and accompanying visualizations are available for use in vaccine development and viral forecasting.
Authors
- Jover Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2391-0512)
- Derek J. Smith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2393-1890)
- Caroline Kikawa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8654-5663)
- Trevor Bedford (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4039-5794)
- Ruth Harvey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1428-9621)
- Heidi Peck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3651-2839)
- Nicola S. Lewis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9496-4756)
- S. Richard Turner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0168-5497)
- Alexander L. Greninger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7443-0527)
- Nancy Leung (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7314-840X)
- John Huddleston (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4250-2063)
- Janet A. Englund (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1134-4178)
- Ian Barr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7351-418X)
- Benjamin J. Cowling (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6297-7154)
- Faith Ho (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5640-2223)
- Andrea N. Loes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8659-0149)
- Hideki Hasegawa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6558-2297)
- Jesse D. Bloom (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1267-3408)
- Shinji Watanabe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9366-3409)
- Kirsten Lacombe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0299-9447)
Institutions
- Seattle Pacific University (US)
- Center for Infectious Disease Research (US)
- Infectious Disease Research Institute (US)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- Hokkaido University (JP)
- The Francis Crick Institute (GB)
- University of Washington Medical Center (US)
- National Institute of Infectious Diseases (JP)
- Fred Hutch Cancer Center (US)
- Bridge University (SS)
- Peter Doherty Institute (AU)
- Seattle Children's Hospital (US)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Virus Evolution
- Published
- 2025-01-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf086
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Influenza Virus Research Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.42
Funders
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- University of Washington
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
- National Institutes of Health
- Medical Research Council
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases