Identification of potent epitopes on hexon capsid protein and their evaluation as vaccine candidates against infections caused by members of Adenoviridae family

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Soban Tufail
  • Majid Ali Shah
  • Maryam Zafar
  • Tayyab Ali Asif
  • Aamir Shehzad
  • Muhammad Salahuddin Shah
  • Mudasser Habib
  • Muhammad Kashif Saleemi
  • Muhammad Muddassar
  • Mirza, Osman Asghar
  • Mazhar Iqbal
  • Moazur Rahman

Adenoviruses cause economically important diseases in vertebrates. Effective vaccines against adenoviral diseases are currently lacking. Here, we report a highly conserved epitopic region on hexon proteins of adenoviruses that generate a strong immune response when used as a virus-like-particle (VLP) vaccine, produced by inserting the epitopic region into the core protein of hepatitis B virus. For evaluation of its protective efficacy, the epitopic region from a representative adenovirus, fowl adenovirus serotype 4 (FAdV-4), was tested as a VLP vaccine which conferred 90% protection against challenge with a virulent FAdV-4 isolate in chickens. Importantly, such a high level of protection is not achieved when the epitopic region is employed as a part of a subunit vaccine. As the sequence and the structure of the epitopic region are highly conserved in hexon proteins of adenoviruses, the epitopic region could be employed as a promising VLP vaccine candidate against adenoviral diseases, in general.

Original languageEnglish
JournalVaccine
Volume39
Issue number27
Pages (from-to)3560-3564
Number of pages5
ISSN0264-410X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

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