Impact of prior vaccination on HI and antibody affinity maturation. In the current study 38/69 individuals received inactivated seasonal influenza vaccine in the previous year (labeled inactivated), while 23/69 were not vaccinated with influenza vaccine in the previous year (labeled none). a–c End-point HI titers against H1N1pdm09 (a), H3N2 (b), and B (c) virus strains at Day 0 (D0; pre-vaccination) and Day 28 (D28; post-vaccination) are shown for FluBlok (in blue), FluCelvax (in red), and Fluzone (in green) for each subject. Fold change in end-point titers are calculated by dividing post-vaccination (Day 28) titers by pre-vaccination (Day 0) for individuals with prior vaccination (Inactivated; closed symbols) vs. no prior year vaccination (None; open symbols), and are shown for each vaccine group. d–k Sequential SPR analysis of human vaccine sera (pre- and post- vaccination) was performed against properly folded H1N1pdm09 HA1 (d) and HA2 (e) domains, H3N2 HA1 (f), and B-HA1 (g). Ten-fold, 50- and/or 250-fold diluted individual serum at pre-vaccination (D0) and at 28 days after immunization (D28) are evaluated for FluBlok (in blue), FluCelvax (in red), and Fluzone (in green) vaccinated individuals who received inactivated seasonal influenza vaccine in the previous year (Inactivated) and individuals who were not vaccinated with influenza vaccine in the previous year (None). Serum antibody off-rate constants are determined as described in Methods. h–k Increase in antibody affinity as measured by fold change in antigen–antibody complex dissociation rates was calculated [1/(off-rate on Day 28/off-rate on Day 0)] against H1N1pdm09 HA1 (h) and HA2 (i) domains, H3N2 HA1 (j) and B-HA1 (k) are shown for FluBlok (in blue), FluCelvax (in red), and Fluzone (in green) for each subject. Geometric means with 95% confidence intervals are shown. For pairwise comparison, an ANCOVA model was used for comparison between the vaccine groups, adjusted for gender, age, and baseline (Day 0) values (Supplementary Tables 8 and 9). Statistically significant differences between groups and pairs are indicated by horizontal bars. Source data are provided as a Source Data file