Alternative vaccine strategies to prevent serogroup B meningococcal diseases

• Published in: Vaccine Vol. 20; pp. S24 - S26
• Main Authors: Poolman, Jan, Berthet, François-Xavier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 15.10.2001
• Subjects: Animals; Escherichia coli - genetics; Humans; Meningococcal Infections - prevention & control; Meningococcal Vaccines - immunology; Neisseria meningitidis; Neisseria meningitidis - classification; Neisseria meningitidis - genetics; outer membrane proteins; outer membranes; Serotyping; Vaccines, Synthetic - immunology
• ISSN: 0264-410X; 1873-2518
• DOI: 10.1016/S0264-410X(01)00283-3

Ideally, a Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B (menB) vaccine should: (i) be safe and immuno-genic in the pediatric population; (ii) elicit protection against a wide range of clinical strains; and (iii) be cost-effective and easy to manufacture at large scale. In this context, we are actively pursuing the development of a multi-component, protein-based vaccine that could possibly protect against all menB strains. Our rationale was to select for conserved, surface accessible, menB antigens able to induce a cross-protective immune response. Moreover, and in order to limit the appearance of vaccine escape mutants, our research was oriented towards a vaccine able to interfere with several aspects of the meningococcal infectious process. To meet with these objectives and identify conserved menB vaccine candidate antigens, we performed in sillico mining of the menB genome in combination with recombinant expression and pre-clinical testing of the vaccine candidate antigens. For that purpose, menB proteins were produced either as subunit antigens in E. coli (heterologous) or via gene up-regulation in the menB chromosome and recovery of recombinant outer-membrane vesicles. Vaccine potential of these subunit and OMVs antigens was then evaluated using various in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical tests.