Long-term effect of serial infections with H13 and H16 low-pathogenic avian influenza viruses in black-headed gulls

• Published in: Journal of Virology
• Main Authors: Verhagen, Josanne H., Höfle, Ursula
• Other Authors: European Research Council, Netherlands Genomics Initiative, National Institutes of Health (US), Ministry of Economic Affairs (The Netherlands)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2015
• Subjects: Black-headed Gull; Chroicocephalus ridibundus
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/142180; https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.01765-15; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003195; https://doi.org/10.13039/100000002; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000781

Infections of domestic and wild birds with low-pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIVs) have been associated with protective immunity to subsequent infection. However, the degree and duration of immunity in wild birds from previous LPAIV infection, by the same or a different subtype, are poorly understood. Therefore, we inoculated H13N2 (A/black-headed gull/Netherlands/7/2009) and H16N3 (A/black-headed gull/Netherlands/26/2009) LPAIVs into black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), their natural host species, and measured the long-term immune response and protection against one or two reinfections over a period of >1 year. This is the typical interval between LPAIV epizootics in wild birds. Reinfection with the same virus resulted in progressively less virus excretion, with complete abrogation of virus excretion after two infections for H13 but not H16. However, reinfection with the other virus affected neither the level nor duration of virus excretion. Virus excretion by immunologically naive birds did not differ in total levels of excreted H13 or H16 virus between first- and second-year birds, but the duration of H13 excretion was shorter for second-year birds. Furthermore, serum antibody levels did not correlate with protection against LPAIV infection. LPAIV-infected gulls showed no clinical signs of disease. These results imply that the epidemiological cycles of H13 and H16 in black-headed gulls are relatively independent from each other and depend mainly on infection of firstyear birds. U.H. was partly funded by a Netherlands Genomics Institute/Virgo Consortium visiting scientist stipend. This work was sponsored by grants from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, European Research Council project FLUPLAN (250136), and NIH NIAID contracts HHSN266200700010C (2007-2014) and HHSN272201400008C (2014- 2021). Peer Reviewed