Immunity to Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus NS3 Protein Induced with a Recombinant Modified Vaccinia Virus Ankara Fails to Afford Mice Protection Against TBEV Infection

Overview

Journal Vaccines (Basel)

Date 2024 Jan 26

PMID 38276677

Authors

Mareike Kubinski

Jana Beicht

Thomas Gerlach

Amare Aregay

Albert D M E Osterhaus

Alina Tscherne

Gerd Sutter

Chittappen Kandiyil Prajeeth

Guus F Rimmelzwaan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is a serious neurological disease caused by TBE virus (TBEV). Because antiviral treatment options are not available, vaccination is the key prophylactic measure against TBEV infections. Despite the availability of effective vaccines, cases of vaccination breakthrough infections have been reported. The multienzymatic non-structural protein 3 (NS3) of orthoflaviviruses plays an important role in polyprotein processing and virus replication. In the present study, we evaluated NS3 of TBEV as a potential vaccine target for the induction of protective immunity. To this end, a recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara that drives the expression of the TBEV NS3 gene (MVA-NS3) was constructed. MVA-NS3 was used to immunize C57BL/6 mice. It induced NS3-specific immune responses, in particular T cell responses, especially against the helicase domain of NS3. However, MVA-NS3-immunized mice were not protected from subsequent challenge infection with a lethal dose of the TBEV strain Neudoerfl, indicating that in contrast to immunity to prME and NS1, NS3-specific immunity is not an independent correlate of protection against TBEV in this mouse model.

Citing Articles

Generating MVA-Vector Vaccine Candidates and Testing Them in Animal Models.

Tscherne A, Meyer Zu Natrup C, Kalodimou G, Volz A Methods Mol Biol. 2024; 2860:297-340.

PMID: 39621276 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-4160-6_20.

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