Vaccines based on the fusion protein consensus sequence protect Syrian hamsters from Nipah virus infection

JCI Insight. 2023 Dec 8;8(23):e175461.

Affiliations

State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Virology & Immunology, Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.
Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
Hubei Jiangxia Laboratory, Wuhan, China.

PMID: 37917215 DOI: PMC10795836 DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.175461

Abstract

Nipah virus (NiV), a bat-borne paramyxovirus, results in neurological and respiratory diseases with high mortality in humans and animals. Developing vaccines is crucial for fighting these diseases. Previously, only a few studies focused on the fusion (F) protein alone as the immunogen. Numerous NiV strains have been identified, including 2 representative strains from Malaysia (NiV-M) and Bangladesh (NiV-B), which differ significantly from each other. In this study, an F protein sequence with the potential to prevent different NiV strain infections was designed by bioinformatics analysis after an in-depth study of NiV sequences in GenBank. Then, a chimpanzee adenoviral vector vaccine and a DNA vaccine were developed. High levels of immune responses were detected after AdC68-F, pVAX1-F, and a prime-boost strategy (pVAX1-F/AdC68-F) in mice. After high titers of humoral responses were induced, the hamsters were challenged by the lethal NiV-M and NiV-B strains separately. The vaccinated hamsters did not show any clinical signs and survived 21 days after infection with either strain of NiV, and no virus was detected in different tissues. These results indicate that the vaccines provided complete protection against representative strains of NiV infection and have the potential to be developed as a broad-spectrum vaccine for human use.

Keywords:Adaptive immunity; Vaccines; Virology.

References

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