Neutralising antibody response in domestic cats immunised with a commercial feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) vaccine

Paweł M Bęczkowski,Matthew Harris,Navapon Techakriengkrai,Julia A Beatty,Brian J Willett,Margaret J Hosie

doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.01.028

Abstract

Across human and veterinary medicine, vaccines against only two retroviral infections have been brought to market successfully, the vaccines against feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). FeLV vaccines have been a global success story, reducing virus prevalence in countries where uptake is high. In contrast, the more recent FIV vaccine was introduced in 2002 and the degree of protection afforded in the field remains to be established. However, given the similarities between FIV and HIV, field studies of FIV vaccine efficacy are likely to advise and inform the development of future approaches to HIV vaccination.Here we assessed the neutralising antibody response induced by FIV vaccination against a panel of FIV isolates, by testing blood samples collected from client-owned vaccinated Australian cats. We examined the molecular and phenotypic properties of 24 envs isolated from one vaccinated cat that we speculated might have become infected following natural exposure to FIV. Cats vaccinated against FIV did not display broadly neutralising antibodies, suggesting that protection may not extend to some virulent recombinant strains of FIV circulating in Australia.

Highlights

Throughout the history of retroviral vaccine development, only two vaccines have made it to market, the vaccines for the feline retroviruses feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV)
The full length FIV env sequence from each clone was assembled using 4 sequencing reads overlapping by approximately 200 bp and manually checked for mismatches
Despite several HIV-1 vaccine efficacy studies in human volunteers [9] and the FIV vaccine having been available commercially for 12 years, the mechanisms of vaccine induced protection against lentiviral infection have not been examined in the field

Summary

Introduction

Throughout the history of retroviral vaccine development, only two vaccines have made it to market, the vaccines for the feline retroviruses FIV and FeLV. FeLV vaccines were introduced over thirty years ago and since have made a significant impact upon the prevalence of infection [1]. The first FIV vaccine was introduced in the US in 2002. Given the similarities between FIV infection of cats and HIV infection of humans, a broader understanding of the mechanisms of immunity to infection with FIV may inform the development of candidate HIV vaccines. An effective HIV vaccine has proved elusive [5] and the insights offered by the study of retroviral immunity in other species may direct future research efforts along a more fruitful pathway

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