School of Biological Sciences and Institute of Microbiology, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
International Vaccine Institute, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
Sci Rep. 2021 Nov 11;11(1):22037. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-01549-z.
Conjugate vaccine platform is a promising strategy to overcome the poor immunogenicity of bacterial polysaccharide antigens in infants and children. A carrier protein in conjugate vaccines works not only as an immune stimulator to polysaccharide, but also as an immunogen; with the latter generally not considered as a measured outcome in real world. Here, we probed the potential of a conjugate vaccine platform to induce enhanced immunogenicity of a truncated rotavirus spike protein ΔVP8*. ΔVP8* was covalently conjugated to Vi capsular polysaccharide (Vi) of Salmonella Typhi to develop a bivalent vaccine, termed Vi-ΔVP8*. Our results demonstrated that the Vi-ΔVP8* vaccine can induce specific immune responses against both antigens in immunized mice. The conjugate vaccine elicits high antibody titers and functional antibodies against S. Typhi and Rotavirus (RV) when compared to immunization with a single antigen. Together, these results indicate that Vi-ΔVP8* is a potent and immunogenic vaccine candidate, thus strengthening the potential of conjugate vaccine platform with enhanced immune responses to carrier protein, including ΔVP8*.
结合疫苗平台是克服婴儿和儿童中细菌多糖抗原免疫原性差的一种很有前途的策略。结合疫苗中的载体蛋白不仅可以作为多糖的免疫刺激剂，还可以作为免疫原；而后者通常不被认为是真实世界中的衡量结果。在这里，我们探讨了结合疫苗平台诱导截短轮状病毒 Spike 蛋白 ΔVP8增强免疫原性的潜力。将 ΔVP8共价连接到伤寒沙门氏菌 Vi 荚膜多糖（Vi）上，开发出一种双价疫苗，称为 Vi-ΔVP8*。我们的结果表明，Vi-ΔVP8疫苗可在免疫小鼠中诱导针对两种抗原的特异性免疫反应。与单一抗原免疫相比，该结合疫苗可诱导针对伤寒沙门氏菌和轮状病毒（RV）的高抗体滴度和功能性抗体。总之，这些结果表明 Vi-ΔVP8是一种有效且具有免疫原性的疫苗候选物，从而增强了结合疫苗平台的潜力，可增强对载体蛋白（包括 ΔVP8*）的免疫反应。
