Protective effects of influenza B neuraminidase antibodies against symptomatic influenza virus infection.

Authors

Skyler Rogers, Kelsey M Sumner, Yangyupei Yang, Emileigh Johnson, Ran Balicer, Alon Peretz, David Greenberg, Avital Hirsch, Mark A Katz, Florian Krammer, Arnold S Monto, Emily T Martin

Published in

The Journal of infectious diseases. Jul 10, 2026. Epub Jul 10, 2026.

Abstract

Influenza vaccines are designed to induce hemagglutinin-inhibiting (HAI) antibodies rather than neuraminidase-inhibiting (NAI) antibodies; therefore, NAI antibodies' protective effects need further investigation. NAI antibodies' protective effects, independent of HAI antibodies, have been demonstrated for influenza A viruses, but not influenza B viruses (IBV).
Employing H6NB reassortant virus targets, we evaluated NAI antibodies' protective effects against IBV in sera from a prospective influenza vaccine effectiveness study among healthcare personnel (HCP) in Israel. Antibody titers against B/Brisbane/60/2008 and B/Phuket/3073/2013 were quantified by HAI and NAI assays. Matched NAI and HAI antibody titers from baseline and post-vaccination sera were analyzed for the 2017-2018 influenza season.
Laboratory-confirmed IBV infection was recorded in 64/262 HCP, and influenza vaccination in 187/262 HCP. Vaccination did not consistently elicit rising NAI titers against vaccine strain B/Brisbane, with a geometric mean fold rise of 1.1 (95% CI: 0.9, 1.3). However, comparing baseline NAI titers, geometric mean titer ratios were 1.50 (95% CI: 1.0, 2.1) times higher against B/Brisbane and 2.5 (95% CI: 1.7, 3.6) times higher against circulating B/Phuket in vaccinated versus unvaccinated HCP. Each two-fold rise in NAI antibody titers reduced the hazard of symptomatic infection by 42% (95% CI: 36%-48%) against B/Phuket and 23% (95% CI: 13%-33%) against B/Brisbane, adjusting for HAI titers.
NAI antibodies were a strong correlate of protection against symptomatic IBV infection, with protective effects independent of those from HAI antibodies. These findings suggest the use and standardization of neuraminidase content in influenza vaccines could provide broader protection against influenza.

PMID:
42430658
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 11 Jul 2026.

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