Zika vaccine candidates progress through nonclinical development and enter clinical trials.

Alan D T Barrett

doi:10.1038/npjvaccines.2016.23

Abstract

Zika vaccine candidates progress through nonclinical development and enter clinical trials.

Highlights

Zika virus (ZIKV), a mosquito-borne flavivirus, was first identified in the 1940s in Africa, emerged in the Americas in Brazil in May 2015, with evidence that supports a causal role for this virus in a range of clinical disease presentations, collectively termed Zika congenital syndrome (ZCS), including identification of the virus in the brains of children who were still-born with microcephaly
These five papers describe utilization of four platforms: purified formalin inactivated virus adjuvanted with alum (PIV), recombinant envelope protein, three different plasmid DNA constructs that all encode the ZIKV prM/E genes, and two adenovirus vectors expressing ZIKV prM/E or rE genes
Larocca et al.[12] demonstrated induction of protective immunity with a single dose of their 50 μg DNA vaccine based on a Brazilian ZIKV sequence given by the IM) route in Balb/c, SJ/L, and C57BL/6 mouse models with undetectable viremia following virus challenge at 4 or 8 weeks post immunization

Summary

Introduction

Zika virus (ZIKV), a mosquito-borne flavivirus, was first identified in the 1940s in Africa, emerged in the Americas in Brazil in May 2015, with evidence that supports a causal role for this virus in a range of clinical disease presentations, collectively termed Zika congenital syndrome (ZCS), including identification of the virus in the brains of children who were still-born with microcephaly. Larocca et al.[12] demonstrated induction of protective immunity with a single dose of their 50 μg DNA vaccine based on a Brazilian ZIKV sequence given by the IM) route in Balb/c, SJ/L, and C57BL/6 mouse models with undetectable viremia following virus challenge (either homologous Brazilian or heterologous Puerto Rico strains by the intravenous route) at 4 or 8 weeks post immunization.

Results

Conclusion