%0 Journal Article %A Miller, Darren S. %A Finnie, John %A Bowden, Timothy R. %A Scholz, Anita C. %A Oh, Sawyin %A Kok, Tuckweng %A Burrell, Christopher J. %A Trinidad, Lee %A Boyle, David B. %A Li, Peng %T Preclinical efficacy studies of influenza A haemagglutinin precursor cleavage loop peptides as a potential vaccine %D 2011 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 92 %N 5 %P 1152-1161 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.028985-0 %I Microbiology Society, %X A universal influenza vaccine that does not require annual reformulation would have clear advantages over the currently approved seasonal vaccine. In this study, we combined the mucosal adjuvant alpha-galactosylceramide (αGalCer) and peptides designed across the highly conserved influenza precursor haemagglutinin (HA0) cleavage loop as a vaccine. Peptides designed across the HA0 of influenza A/H3N2 viruses, delivered to mice via the intranasal route with αGalCer as an adjuvant, provided 100 % protection following H3N2 virus challenge. Similarly, intranasal inoculation of peptides across the HA0 of influenza A/H5N1 with αGalCer completely protected mice against heterotypic challenge with H3N2 virus. Our data suggest that these peptide vaccines effectively inhibited subsequent influenza A/H3N2 virus replication. In contrast, only 20 % of mice vaccinated with αGalCer-adjuvanted peptides spanning the HA0 of H5N1 survived homologous viral challenge, possibly because the HA0 of this virus subtype is cleaved by intracellular furin-like enzymes. Results of these studies demonstrated that HA0 peptides adjuvanted with αGalCer have the potential to form the basis of a synthetic, intranasal influenza vaccine. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.028985-0