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Abstract
Influenza viruses are a major pathogen of humans, domestic animals, and wild animals which constantly mutate and cause devastating disease in their hosts. Understanding the immune response and eliciting protective immunity against influenza is critical to minimize disease and transmission. This study examines inhibition of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) as a potential method to modulate robust immune response against influenza. IDO inhibition results in an enhanced T cell response with reduced pathology upon influenza challenge. This would suggest that the inclusion of IDO inhibitors in vaccination may serve as a way to enhance memory T cell responses and reduce the damage from influenza infection. The importance of memory T cells in maintaining effective heterosubtypic immunity is also examined in the context of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus. This study showed that the pandemic H1N1 virus evades memory T cells generated against pre-pandemic H1N1 influenza and emphasizes the need for a diverse T cell repertoire to prepare populations against novel influenza challenges.