Abstract
Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), which is caused by SFTS virus (SFTSV), is a tick-borne emerging zoonosis with a high case-fatality rate. At present, there is no approved SFTS vaccine, although the development of a vaccine would be one of the best strategies for preventing SFTS. This article focused on studies aimed at establishing small animal models of SFTS that are indispensable for evaluating vaccine candidates, developing these vaccine candidates, and establishing more practical animal models for evaluation. Innate immune-deficient mouse models, a hamster model, an immunocompetent ferret model and a cat model have been developed for SFTS. Several vaccine candidates for SFTS have been developed, and their efficacy has been confirmed using these animal models. The candidates consist of live-attenuated virus-based, viral vector-based, or DNA-based vaccines. SFTS vaccines are expected to be used for humans and companion dogs and cats. Hence for practical use, the vaccine candidates should be evaluated for efficacy using not only nonhuman primates but also dogs and cats. There is no practical nonhuman primate model of SFTS; however, the cat model is available to evaluate the efficacy of these candidate SFTS vaccines on domesticated animals.
Highlights
The survival rates of m8-glycoprotein precursor (GPC)- or m8-N+GPCvaccinated mice were higher in comparison to m8-N-vaccinated mice, and the results suggested that GPC was better than N as the antigen for Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) vaccine
To verify the contribution of the humoral immunity induced by the m8-SFTS virus (SFTSV) vaccines, 400 μL of pooled sera obtained from the mice vaccinated twice with 1 × 106 plaque-forming units (PFU) of m8-based SFTSV vaccines was intraperitoneally administered to naïve mice on −1, 0, and 1 days post-infection with
The efficacy of several promising SFTS vaccine candidates has been confirmed in small animal models
Summary
Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging viral hemorrhagic fever with a high case-fatality rate (approximately 5% to >40%) [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Human-to-human transmission rarely occurs through contact with infected blood, saliva, and possibly aerosols [19,20] Domesticated animals, such as companion dogs and cats, should be considered a source of animal-to-human transmission, since viral RNA, specific antibodies, and even virus isolation from sera have reported in various wild and domesticated animals, including dogs and cats [10,21,22,23,24,25]. It is a serious matter that two of the three cases of cat-to-human transmission of SFTS involved veterinarians who had cared for cats infected with SFTSV. The vaccine should be highly effective at preventing infection, the onset of illness or severe illness, and if feasible, it should be provided at an affordable price
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