The potential of currently unavailable herpes virus vaccines

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Despite overwhelming experimental work, there are no licensed vaccines against the most frequent Alphaherpesviruses, namely herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 (HSV1 and 2) nor against the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a member of the subfamily Gammaherpesvirus.

Areas covered: Since the DNAs of both HSVs reside in the regional sensory ganglia in a latent state (i.e. as circularized episomal molecules), a corresponding vaccine might be useful for immunotherapy rather than for prevention of primary infection. Here we describe the design of a purified subunit vaccine as well as the preparation and efficacy of a recombinant fusion protein consisting of the gD ectodomain from our domestic attenuated HSV1 strain HSZP. The EBV vaccines considered so far, were destined for prevention of infectious mononucleosis (IM) or to prevent formation of EBV related tumors. To design the EBV peptide vaccine, at least 15 carefully selected immunogenic epitopes coming from 12 virus coded proteins were bound to synthetic micro-particle carriers along with a non-specific pathogen recognizing receptor (PRR) stimulating both the T as well as B lymphocytes.

Expert commentary: The efficacy of a novel EBV peptide in the rabbit model was based on criteria such as antibody formation (EA-D detected by ELISA, early and capsid proteins tested by immunoblot), presence of LMP1 antigen and of viral DNA in peripheral white blood cells. Out of 19 peptide combinations used for vaccination, at least 6 showed a satisfactory protective effect.

KEYWORDS:

• Herpes simplex virus 1
• herpes simplex virus 2
• Epstein-Barr virus
• subunit vaccine
• recombinant gD ectodomain
• peptide vaccine
• vaccine efficacy

Acknowledgments

The corresponding author appreciates the inevitable help of ass. prof. Dr. V. Ďurmanová, PhD, from the Institute of Immunology, Medical Faculty, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, who participated in several experiments cited in References. Many results published and listed here could not had been accomplished without active cooperation of all former author’s coworkers from the Institute of Virology (recently a part of Biomedical Research Center) of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Declaration of interest

J Rajcáni J, F Bánáti and K Szenthe all work at RT-Europe Nonprofit Research Center, Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary. S Szathmary works at Galenbio Ltd, Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was in part funded by the Hungarian Agency for Research Development Project number TECH_08-A1-EBVGAL08.