A Hendra virus G glycoprotein subunit vaccine protects African green monkeys from Nipah virus challenge.
Katharine N Bossart, Barry Rockx, Friederike Feldmann, Doug Brining, Dana Scott, Rachel LaCasse, Joan B Geisbert, Yan-Ru Feng, Yee-Peng Chan, Andrew C Hickey, Christopher C Broder, Heinz Feldmann, Thomas W Geisbert
Author Information
Katharine N Bossart: Department of Microbiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, USA.
In the 1990s, Hendra virus and Nipah virus (NiV), two closely related and previously unrecognized paramyxoviruses that cause severe disease and death in humans and a variety of animals, were discovered in Australia and Malaysia, respectively. Outbreaks of disease have occurred nearly every year since NiV was first discovered, with case fatality ranging from 10 to 100%. In the African green monkey (AGM), NiV causes a severe lethal respiratory and/or neurological disease that essentially mirrors fatal human disease. Thus, the AGM represents a reliable disease model for vaccine and therapeutic efficacy testing. We show that vaccination of AGMs with a recombinant subunit vaccine based on the henipavirus attachment G glycoprotein affords complete protection against subsequent NiV infection with no evidence of clinical disease, virus replication, or pathology observed in any challenged subjects. Success of the recombinant subunit vaccine in nonhuman primates provides crucial data in supporting its further preclinical development for potential human use.
References
Patholog Res Int. 2011;2011:567248
[PMID: 21961078]
