Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology (Mar 2023)

Construction and evaluation of DNA vaccine encoding Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus nucleocapsid protein, glycoprotein N-terminal and C-terminal fused with LAMP1

  • Yong-Liang Hu,
  • Yong-Liang Hu,
  • Lian-Qing Zhang,
  • Lian-Qing Zhang,
  • Xiao-Qian Liu,
  • Xiao-Qian Liu,
  • Wei Ye,
  • Yue-Xi Zhao,
  • Yue-Xi Zhao,
  • Liang Zhang,
  • Zun-Xian Qiang,
  • Lin-Xuan Zhang,
  • Ying-Feng Lei,
  • Dong-Bo Jiang,
  • Lin-Feng Cheng,
  • Fang-Lin Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2023.1121163
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

Read online

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) can cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and is mainly transmitted by ticks. There is no effective vaccine for Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) at present. We developed three DNA vaccines encoding CCHFV nucleocapsid protein (NP), glycoprotein N-terminal (Gn) and C-terminal (Gc) fused with lysosome-associated membrane protein 1 (LAMP1) and assessed their immunogenicity and protective efficacy in a human MHC (HLA-A11/DR1) transgenic mouse model. The mice that were vaccinated three times with pVAX-LAMP1-CCHFV-NP induced balanced Th1 and Th2 responses and could most effectively protect mice from CCHFV transcription and entry-competent virus-like particles (tecVLPs) infection. The mice vaccinated with pVAX-LAMP1-CCHFV-Gc mainly elicited specific anti-Gc and neutralizing antibodies and provided a certain protection from CCHFV tecVLPs infection, but the protective efficacy was less than that of pVAX-LAMP1-CCHFV-NP. The mice vaccinated with pVAX-LAMP1-CCHFV-Gn only elicited specific anti-Gn antibodies and could not provide sufficient protection from CCHFV tecVLPs infection. These results suggest that pVAX-LAMP1-CCHFV-NP would be a potential and powerful candidate vaccine for CCHFV.

Keywords