Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics (Aug 2017)

N-(2-hydroxy) propyl-3-trimethylammonium chitosan chloride: An immune-enhancing adjuvant for hepatitis E virus recombinant polypeptide vaccine in mice

  • Wei Tao,
  • Hai-Qun Zheng,
  • Ting Fu,
  • Zhuo-Jing He,
  • Yan Hong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2017.1331191
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 8
pp. 1818 – 1822

Abstract

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Adjuvants are essential for enhancing vaccine potency by improving the humoral and/or cell-mediated immune response to vaccine antigens. This study was performed to evaluate the immuno-enhancing characteristic of N-(2-hydroxy) propyl-3-trimethylammonium chitosan chloride (HTCC), the cationically modified chitosan, as an adjuvant for hepatitis E virus (HEV) recombinant polypeptide vaccine. Animal experiments showed that HTCC provides adjuvant activity when co-administered with HEV recombinant polypeptide vaccine by intramuscularly route. Vaccination using HTCC as an adjuvant was associated with increases of the serum HEV-specific IgG antibodies, splenocytes proliferation and the growths of CD4+CD8− T lymphocytes and IFN-γ-secreting T lymphocytes in peripheral blood. These findings suggested that HTCC had strong immuno-enhancing effect. Our findings are the first to demonstrate that HTCC is safe and effective in inducing a good antibody response and stimulating Th1-biased immune responses for HEV recombinant polypeptide vaccine.

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