In Vitro Pre-Clinical Evaluation of a Gonococcal Trivalent Candidate Vaccine Identified by Transcriptomics

Gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease caused by , poses a significant global public health threat. Infection in women can be asymptomatic and may result in severe reproductive complications. Escalating antibiotic resistance underscores the need for an effective vaccine. Approaches being explored...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Vaccines (Basel) 2023-12, Vol.11 (12), p.1846
Main Authors: Roe, Shea K, Felter, Brian, Zheng, Bo, Ram, Sanjay, Wetzler, Lee M, Garges, Eric, Zhu, Tianmou, Genco, Caroline A, Massari, Paola
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjuvants
Animal models
Antibiotic resistance
Antibodies
Antigens
Asymptomatic
Bacteria
Bacterial vaccines
Bactericidal activity
bactericidal antibodies
Bioinformatics
Clinical trials
Cross-protection
Design and construction
Disease transmission
Epidemiology
Evaluation
Females
Gene expression
Gonorrhea
Health care
Health risks
Health surveillance
Immune clearance
Immune response
Immune system
Immunization
Infections
Lymphocytes T
Medical diagnosis
Membrane vesicles
Peptides
Prevention
Preventive medicine
Proteins
Public health
Sexually transmitted diseases
STD
Th1/Th2 responses
Transcriptomes
Transcriptomics
vaccine
Vaccines
Vagina
Women
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Summary:Gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease caused by , poses a significant global public health threat. Infection in women can be asymptomatic and may result in severe reproductive complications. Escalating antibiotic resistance underscores the need for an effective vaccine. Approaches being explored include subunit vaccines and outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), but an ideal candidate remains elusive. Meningococcal OMV-based vaccines have been associated with reduced rates of gonorrhea in retrospective epidemiologic studies, and with accelerated gonococcal clearance in mouse vaginal colonization models. Cross-protection is attributed to shared antigens and possibly cross-reactive, bactericidal antibodies. Using a Candidate Antigen Selection Strategy (CASS) based on the gonococcal transcriptome during human mucosal infection, we identified new potential vaccine targets that, when used to immunize mice, induced the production of antibodies with bactericidal activity against strains. The current study determined antigen recognition by human sera from -infected subjects, evaluated their potential as a multi-antigen (combination) vaccine in mice and examined the impact of different adjuvants (Alum or Alum+MPLA) on functional antibody responses to . Our results indicated that a stronger Th1 immune response component induced by Alum+MPLA led to antibodies with improved bactericidal activity. In conclusion, a combination of CASS-derived antigens may be promising for developing effective gonococcal vaccines.
ISSN:2076-393X
2076-393X
DOI:10.3390/vaccines11121846