Protection Against Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Infection in a Neonatal Murine Model Using a Trivalent Nucleoside-modified MRNA in Lipid Nanoparticle Vaccine

Overview

Journal Vaccine

Specialty Allergy & Immunology

Date 2020 Oct 12

PMID 33041105

Citations 19

Authors

Philip C LaTourette 2nd

Sita Awasthi

Angela Desmond

Norbert Pardi

Gary H Cohen

Drew Weissman

Harvey M Friedman

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Neonatal herpes is a dreaded complication of genital herpes infection in pregnancy. We recently compared two vaccine platforms for preventing genital herpes in female mice and guinea pigs and determined that HSV-2 glycoproteins C, D and E expressed using nucleoside-modified mRNA in lipid nanoparticles provided better protection than the same antigens produced as baculovirus proteins and administered with CpG and alum. Here we evaluated mRNA and protein immunization for protection against neonatal herpes. Female mice were immunized prior to mating and newborns were infected intranasally with HSV-2. IgG binding and neutralizing antibody levels in mothers and newborns were comparable using the mRNA or protein vaccines. Both vaccines protected first and second litter newborns against disseminated infection based on virus titers in multiple organs. We conclude that both vaccines are efficacious at preventing neonatal herpes, which leaves the mRNA vaccine as our preferred candidate based on better protection against genital herpes.

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