Media recommendation
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
What the
An experimental single-dose, intranasal influenza vaccine was safe and produced a lasting immune response when tested in a phase 1 study published in Journal of Clinical Investigation. The investigational vaccine, called Ad4-H5-VTN, is a recombinant vaccine that reproduces the adenovirus, designed to stimulate antibodies to hemagglutinin, a protein found on the surface of flu viruses that attach to human cells.
The investigational vaccine was developed by Emergent Biosolutions Inc., (Gaithersburg, Maryland). It was administered intranasally (28 study participants), as an oral capsule (10 participants) and through an amygdala pad (25 participants), to healthy men and non-pregnant women aged 18 to 49 years.
Participants who received the intranasal or tonsillar buffer vaccine had significantly higher levels of H5-specific neutralizing antibodies compared to the group that received the oral vaccine capsule. Participants who received the intranasal vaccine discarded the viral DNA for two to four weeks, but the virus could be cultured for a median of one day. Participants had evidence of responses to H5-specific CD4 + and CD8 + T cells. In addition, volunteers who received the intranasal vaccine had high levels of serum neutralizing antibodies 26 weeks after vaccination, and this level was unchanged at three to five years after a single intranasal dose of vaccine. The duration of viral shedding was correlated with a high magnitude of the response to neutralizing antibodies at week 26. In addition, the intranasal vaccine induced a mucosal antibody response in the nose, mouth, and rectum.
The study’s authors speculate that vector vaccines with competent replication may have advantages over other types of vaccines because they can express viral proteins at higher levels and for longer durations. In addition, this type of vaccine induces a mucosal immune response, which is essential for limiting the transmission of viruses that infect mucosal tissues.
The vaccination platform could be highly adaptable for use against other viruses, including HIV and SARS-CoV-2, according to the authors.
Article
K Matsuda et al. A replication-competent influenza vaccine given by the adenovirus virus induces lasting systemic and mucosal immunity. Journal of Clinical Investigation DOI: doi.org/10.1172/JCI140794.
WHO
Mark Connors, MD, head of the HIV-specific immunity section at NIAID’s immunoregulatory laboratory and principal investigator for the Phase 1 study, is available for interviews.
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