Dynamics of the bacterially expressed conserved immunogenic region of the human respiratory syncytial virus G protein

Abstract

AbstractDespite all efforts, there is still no effective vaccine available against the human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) that is a major cause of severe lower respiratory tract disease in infants and the elderly. In this review, we examined the potential of the conserved immunogenic region (residues 122–226) of the HRSV glycoprotein G alone as the inducer of neutralizing antibodies against this virus. The Escherichia coli produced recombinant conserved region of G (designated as G domain), which was used for rabbit immunization. Although rabbit is a semipermissive host for HRSV, our result showed that the polyclonal antibodies against the G domain protein could strongly neutralize the virus (69.3%), suggesting that the G immunogenic region of HRSV alone has a great potential in vaccine development. To our knowledge, this is the first report in which neutralizing antibodies to respiratory syncytial virus have been evoked using bacterially expressed G immunogenic domain protein without any adjuvant.