Photo by Sakura Midori
Researchers say they have developed a nanoparticle-based vaccine against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) that can induce potent neutralizing antibodies in mice and monkeys.
These results suggest that using a structure-based vaccine design and self-assembling nanoparticles to deliver a viral protein that prompts an immune response could be a promising approach for developing an EBV vaccine for humans.
Most efforts to develop a preventive EBV vaccine have focused on glycoprotein 350 (gp350), a molecule on the surface of EBV that helps the virus attach to B cells. EBV gp350 is thought to be a key target for antibodies capable of preventing viral infection.
Previously, researchers showed that vaccinating monkeys with gp350 protected the animals from developing lymphomas after exposure to a high dose of EBV.
However, in the only large human trial of an experimental EBV vaccine conducted to date, the EBV gp350 vaccine did not prevent EBV infection, although it did reduce the rate of infectious mononucleosis by 78%.
With this in mind, Masaru Kanekiyo, DVM, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues set out to create a better vaccine.
They described their work in a paper published in Cell.
The team designed a nanoparticle-based vaccine that expressed the cell-binding portion of gp350. In tests, the experimental vaccine induced potent neutralizing antibodies in both mice and cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis).
In fact, compared with soluble gp350, the nanoparticle-based vaccine induced 10- to 100-fold higher levels of neutralizing antibodies in mice.
The researchers believe the nanoparticle vaccine design could be used to create or redesign vaccines against other pathogens as well.
