Chimeric Fusion (F) and Attachment (G) Glycoprotein Antigen Delivery by mRNA as a Candidate Nipah Vaccine

Autor: Rebecca J. Loomis, Anthony T. DiPiazza, Samantha Falcone, Tracy J. Ruckwardt, Kaitlyn M. Morabito, Olubukola M. Abiona, Lauren A. Chang, Ria T. Caringal, Vladimir Presnyak, Elisabeth Narayanan, Yaroslav Tsybovsky, Deepika Nair, Geoffrey B. Hutchinson, Guillaume B. E. Stewart-Jones, Lisa A. Kueltzo, Sunny Himansu, John R. Mascola, Andrea Carfi, Barney S. Graham
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Frontiers in Immunology, Vol 12 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1664-3224
DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.772864
Popis: Nipah virus (NiV) represents a significant pandemic threat with zoonotic transmission from bats-to-humans with almost annual regional outbreaks characterized by documented human-to-human transmission and high fatality rates. Currently, no vaccine against NiV has been approved. Structure-based design and protein engineering principles were applied to stabilize the fusion (F) protein in its prefusion trimeric conformation (pre-F) to improve expression and increase immunogenicity. We covalently linked the stabilized pre-F through trimerization domains at the C-terminus to three attachment protein (G) monomers, forming a chimeric design. These studies detailed here focus on mRNA delivery of NiV immunogens in mice, assessment of mRNA immunogen-specific design elements and their effects on humoral and cellular immunogenicity. The pre-F/G chimera elicited a strong neutralizing antibody response and a superior NiV-specific Tfh and other effector T cell response compared to G alone across both the mRNA and protein platforms. These findings enabled final candidate selection of pre-F/G Fd for clinical development.
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