The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) said Tuesday that its research team has developed a self-assembling protein-based, nano-structured vaccine to prevent infectious diseases, including influenza, effectively.
A KAIST research team, led by Professor Jon Sang-yong of the Department of Biological Sciences, said Tuesday that it has developed a new vaccine platform with self-assembling protein-based nanostructures that prevent various infectious diseases, including influenza.
The research team, led by Professors Jon Sang-yong and Song Ji-joon of the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST, developed a new vaccine platform that fights back influenza using the outer protein of immunogenic brucella protein (BP26) carriers delivering antigen. They then showed the technology could effectively prevent infection from several influenza viruses by inducing the production of antibodies.
Self-assembled protein-based nanostructures have been used as antigen-delivery carriers by imitating virus-like particles. Still, they required additional use of adjuvants to enhance immunogenicity, which often caused side effects.
Researchers developed a vaccine platform against influenza viruses based on a barrel-shaped nano-structure with BP26 that induces immunogenicity and strengthens immunity.
Seasonal flu breaks out every year due to the weakened effect of vaccines against frequent mutations, which require complex predicting, producing, and inoculating new vaccines. The research team performed genetic engineering of a monomeric BP26 containing four or eight tandem repeats of M2e resulted in a hollow barrel-shaped nano-structure to induce an immune response to protect from various viruses.
The barrel-shaped nano-structured vaccine induced a strong M2e-humoral immune response much greater than a physical mixture of soluble M2e and BP26, with or without an adjuvant. The vaccine also effectively prevented infections against influenza in animal models.
“We became the first to develop a new general-purpose influenza vaccine based on nanostructure derived from pathogens,” Professor Jong said.” “We have begun a follow-up study to develop new candidates for Covid-19 pandemic using the versatile vaccine platform.”
The study, titled “Antigen-Presenting, Self-Assembled Protein Nanobarrels as an Adjuvant-Free Vaccine Platform against Influenza Virus,” was published in the online edition of the U.S. journal, ACS Nano, on June 11.
The study was conducted with the support of the Precision Bio-Nanomedicine Research Center of the National Research Foundation and the KAIST Grand Challenge 30 Project.