Vaccination with recombinant adenovirus expressing peste des petits ruminants virus-F or -H proteins elicits T cell responses to epitopes that arises during PPRV infection

José Manuel Rojas,Noemí Sevilla,Miguel Avia,Verónica Martín,Elena Pascual

doi:10.1186/s13567-017-0482-x

Abstract

Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) causes an economically important disease that limits productivity in small domestic ruminants and often affects the livestock of the poorest populations in developing countries. Animals that survive PPRV develop strong cellular and humoral responses, which are probably necessary for protection. Vaccination should thus aim at mimicking these natural responses. Immunization strategies against this morbillivirus using recombinant adenoviruses expressing PPRV-F or -H proteins can protect PPRV-challenged animals and permit differentiation of infected from vaccinated animals. Little is known of the T cell repertoire these recombinant vaccines induce. In the present work, we identified several CD4+ and CD8+ T cell epitopes in sheep infected with PPRV. We also show that recombinant adenovirus vaccination induced T cell responses to the same epitopes, and led to memory T cell differentiation. T cells primed by these recombinant adenovirus vaccines expanded after PPRV challenge and probably contributed to protection. These data validate the use of recombinant adenovirus expressing PPRV genes as DIVA strategies to control this highly contagious disease.

Highlights

Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) causes an economically important disease that limits productivity in small domestic ruminants [1, 2]
Identification of PPRV T cell epitopes in sheep After characterizing PPPRV-F, -H and -NP binders to MHC class I molecules (Table 1) as well as their immunogenic potential in C57BL/6 mice (Additional file 2), the immunogenicity of these putative PPRV T cell epitopes was explored in sheep
Since previous work established that unvaccinated and adenovirus 5 (Ad5)-empty vaccinated sheep were naïve towards PPRV [23], sheep peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) from both groups were used in these assays

Summary

Introduction

Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) causes an economically important disease that limits productivity in small domestic ruminants [1, 2]. Infection of naïve populations can be devastating, in goats, leading to mortality rates of up to 90% [3,4,5]. PPRV is a morbillivirus that belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family [7]. This genus of single-stranded negative sense enveloped RNA viruses causes relevant diseases (like measles or canine distemper) in human and animals. PPRV single-strand RNA genome encodes 6 structural and 2 non-structural proteins [1]. PPRV infection is immunosuppressive, which can lead to opportunistic pathogen infections that contribute to the high mortality and morbidity rates of infected animals [4, 8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion