Enhancing immunogenicity and transmission-blocking activity of malaria vaccines by fusing Pfs25 to IMX313 multimerization technology

Autor: Yuanyuan, Li, Darren B, Leneghan, Kazutoyo, Miura, Daria, Nikolaeva, Iona J, Brian, Matthew D J, Dicks, Alex J, Fyfe, Sarah E, Zakutansky, Simone, de Cassan, Carole A, Long, Simon J, Draper, Adrian V S, Hill, Fergal, Hill, Sumi, Biswas
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports
ISSN: 2045-2322
Popis: Transmission-blocking vaccines (TBV) target the sexual-stages of the malaria parasite in the mosquito midgut and are widely considered to be an essential tool for malaria elimination. High-titer functional antibodies are required against target antigens to achieve effective transmission-blocking activity. We have fused Pfs25, the leading malaria TBV candidate antigen to IMX313, a molecular adjuvant and expressed it both in ChAd63 and MVA viral vectors and as a secreted protein-nanoparticle. Pfs25-IMX313 expressed from viral vectors or as a protein-nanoparticle is significantly more immunogenic and gives significantly better transmission-reducing activity than monomeric Pfs25. In addition, we demonstrate that the Pfs25-IMX313 protein-nanoparticle leads to a qualitatively improved antibody response in comparison to soluble Pfs25, as well as to significantly higher germinal centre (GC) responses. These results demonstrate that antigen multimerization using IMX313 is a very promising strategy to enhance antibody responses against Pfs25, and that Pfs25-IMX313 is a highly promising TBV candidate vaccine.
Databáze: OpenAIRE