Nasal immunization using a mimovirus vaccine based on the Eppin B-cell epitope induced suppressed fertility in mice

Abstract

To elicit potent humoral immunity and produce adequate neutralizing antibody especially in the genital tract and eventually to promote its immunogenicity, we designed an Eppin B-cell-dominant-epitope-based mimovirus vaccine with an RGD motif which can be nasally inoculated into male mice. Our results indicate that this immune strategy successfully generated a high antibody response with significantly higher anti-Eppin IgA in the genital tract, and eventually achieve significant inhibition of fertility without any interference with testis function and alteration in structural integrity. The fertility rate of the females mating with the vaccinated males declined and the progeny size was greatly reduced, but the contraceptive efficacy was still far from that of immunocontraceptives for human use. However, the research showed a new contraceptive vaccine construction and inoculation avenue, that is, mimovirus vaccine delivered nasally. Further investigation geared toward improving fertility inhibition efficacy using this inoculation strategy still remains to be explored.

Keywords: :

• epididymal protease inhibitor
• nasal immunization
• immunocontraception
• contraceptive vaccine

10.4161/hv.29200

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30901607 and No.81270758). The authors would also like to thank Dr Dev Sooranna, Imperial College London, for helping to edit the manuscript.