Ponentes
Descripción
Zika virus infection continues being a global concern for the human health due to the high risk to association of the disease with neurological disorders and microcephaly in newborn. Nowadays, no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment is available, and the development of safe and effective vaccines is yet a challenge. In this study, we designed a novel recombinant subunit vaccine that combines two regions of zika virus, domain III and capsid, in a chimeric protein obtained in E. coli bacteria. The recombinant protein was characterized with polyclonal anti-ZVIK and anti-DENV antibodies that corroborate the specificity and proper folding of the molecule. Also, the PBMC from zika immune-donors stimulated with the ZEC recombinant antigen showed the capacity to recall the memory T cell response previously generated by the natural infection. The chimeric protein ZEC was able to self-assembling after combination with an immunomodulatory oligonucleotide to form aggregates. The immunization of immunocompetent mice was made to compare the immunogenicity of the protein in the absence of the oligonucleotide and the aggregated form of protein ZEC upon the assembly process. Both formulations showed a similar humoral immune response, but the aggregated variant induced more cell-mediated immunity evaluated by in vitro IFN-γ secretion. In this study, we propose a novel vaccine candidate against the zika disease based on a recombinant protein that can stimulate both arms of the immune system.
