Self-assembling peptide nanofiber vaccines elicit robust cytotoxic T cell responses (P4515)

Abstract

Abstract Vaccines that elicit robust CTL responses are desirable for protection against infectious diseases and cancer. However, clinical vaccine adjuvants like alum elicit robust antibody responses but poor T cell responses. We recently reported that self-assembling peptides that form nanofibers in physiological buffers act as powerful immune adjuvants. When peptide antigens (OVA323-339) were linked to self-assembling peptides, strong adjuvant-free and antigen-specific antibody responses were observed in mice. The protective efficacy of antibodies induced with self-assembling peptide vaccines, was confirmed in a murine malaria model. In this study, we investigated whether self-assembling peptides bearing a CD8+ T cell epitope (OVA257-264) would elicit antigen-specific effector and memory T cell responses. Our results indicate that OVA257-264-nanofibers elicit significantly higher levels of antigen-specific T cells, IFN-γ, and protected against OVA-influenza compared to alum or IFA. These results suggest that self-assembling peptide nanofibers may be useful as adjuvants for vaccines where CD8+ T cell-mediated protection is desirable.