Establish a Pregnant Sow–Neonate Model to Assess Maternal Immunity of a Candidate Influenza Vaccine

While it is well appreciated that maternal immunity can provide neonatal protection, the contribution of maternal vaccination toward generating such immunity is not well characterized. In our previous work, we created a candidate influenza vaccine using our chimeric hemagglutinin (HA) construct, HA-129. The HA-129 was expressed as part of a whole-virus vaccine that was built on the A/swine/Texas/4199-2/98-H3N2 backbone to generate the recombinant virus TX98-129. The TX98-129 candidate vaccine has the ability to induce broadly protective immune responses against genetically diversified influenza viruses in both mice and nursery pigs. In the current study, we established a pregnant sow–neonate model to evaluate the maternal immunity induced by this candidate vaccine to protect pregnant sows and their neonatal piglets against influenza virus infection. In pregnant sows, the results consistently show that TX98-129 induced a robust immune response against the TX98-129 virus and the parental viruses that were used to construct HA-129. After challenge with a field strain of influenza A virus, a significant increase in antibody titers was observed in vaccinated sows at both 5 and 22 days post challenge (dpc). The challenge virus was detected at a low level in the nasal swab of only one vaccinated sow at 5 dpc. Evaluation of cytokine responses in blood and lung tissue showed that levels of IFN-α and IL-1β were increased in the lung of vaccinated sows at 5 dpc, when compared to unvaccinated pigs. Further analysis of the T-cell subpopulation in PBMCs showed a higher ratio of IFN-γ-secreting CD4(+)CD8(+) and CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells in vaccinated sows at 22 dpc after stimulation with either challenge virus or vaccine virus. Finally, we used a neonatal challenge model to demonstrate that vaccine-induced maternal immunity can be passively transferred to newborn piglets. This was observed in the form of both increased antibody titers and deceased viral loads in neonates born from immunized sows. In summary, this study provides a swine model system to evaluate the impact of vaccination on maternal immunity and fetal/neonatal development.