A common neutralizing epitope conserved between the hemagglutinins of influenza A virus H1 and H2 strains.

When mice were immunized with the A/Okuda/57 (H2N2) strain of influenza virus, a unique monoclonal antibody designated C179 was obtained. Although C179 was confirmed to recognize the hemagglutinin (HA) glycoprotein by immunoprecipitation assays, it did not show hemagglutination inhibition activity to any of the strains of the three subtypes of influenza A virus. However, it neutralized all of the H1 and H2 strains but not the H3 strains. Moreover, it inhibited polykaryon formation induced by the H1 and H2 strains but not by the H3 strains. Two antigenic variants against C179 were obtained, and nucleotide sequence analysis revealed that amino acid sequences, from 318 to 322 of HA1 and from 47 to 58 of HA2, conserved among H1 and H2 strains were responsible for the recognition of C179. Since the two sites were located close to each other at the middle of the stem region of the HA molecule, C179 seemed to recognize these sites conformationally. These data indicated that binding of C179 to the stem region of HA inhibits the fusion activity of HA and thus results in virus neutralization and inhibition of cell-cell fusion. This is the first report which describes the presence of conserved antigenic sites on HA not only in a specific subtype but also in two subtypes of influenza A virus.