Purification of influenza B virus hemagglutinin by isoelectric focusing

Influenza viruses cause recurring illnesses in individuals and recurring epidemics in the general population, affecting hundreds of millions of people every year. Today, annual vaccination is the most effective means of controlling influenza. To further optimise influenza vaccines and to improve the performance of tests used in the evaluation of vaccine response for characterisation of isolates, a new method for purification of the surface antigens of influenza viruses based on isoelectric focusing method has been standardised and evaluated. By means of this technique, we separated Hemagglutinin of the strain B/Panama/45/90 from other proteins present in the studied bulk, which is the material generally, used to prepare the subunit influenza vaccine. In conclusion, the isoelectric focusing technique appears to be useful in order to improve the safety and tolerability of Influenza vaccines. Moreover, purified influenza virus antigens can improve the performances of the laboratory tests in order to study immunogenicity elicited by the vaccines.