| Institution: | 1. Drug Discovery and Structural Biology group, Health Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan;2. Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan;3. Vaccine Development group, Animal Sciences Division, Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad, Pakistan;4. Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan;5. Department of Biosciences, COMSATS-University Islamabad, Park Road, Islamabad, Pakistan;6. Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;7. School of Biological Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan |
| Abstract: | Adenoviruses cause economically important diseases in vertebrates. Effective vaccines against adenoviral diseases are currently lacking. Here, we report a highly conserved epitopic region on hexon proteins of adenoviruses that generate a strong immune response when used as a virus-like-particle (VLP) vaccine, produced by inserting the epitopic region into the core protein of hepatitis B virus. For evaluation of its protective efficacy, the epitopic region from a representative adenovirus, fowl adenovirus serotype 4 (FAdV-4), was tested as a VLP vaccine which conferred 90% protection against challenge with a virulent FAdV-4 isolate in chickens. Importantly, such a high level of protection is not achieved when the epitopic region is employed as a part of a subunit vaccine. As the sequence and the structure of the epitopic region are highly conserved in hexon proteins of adenoviruses, the epitopic region could be employed as a promising VLP vaccine candidate against adenoviral diseases, in general. |
