Glycoengineering of hCK and MDCK for influenza A virus propagation

Recent human H3N2 influenza A viruses have evolved to bind elongated glycans terminated with α2,6-linked sialic acids. These extended glycans are of low abundance on cells that are used for the propagation of these viruses, which may explain why it is very difficult to isolate and propagate human H3N2 viruses. This greatly hampers the further study of these viruses. Therefore, we elongated the glycans on cells (MDCK and hCK) by overexpression of the glycosyltransferases that are responsible for building N-acetyllactosamine (LacNAc) repeats, namely B3GNT2 and B4GALT1. Overexpression was clearly shown by qPCR and MS experiments.