A complex adenovirus vaccine against chikungunya virus provides complete protection against viraemia and arthritis

• DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.01.108
• Publication Date: 2011-02-15T15:14:12Z
• Authors: Danher Wang; Andreas Suhrbier; Adam Penn-Nicholson; Jan Woraratanadharm; Joy Gardner; Min Luo; Thuy T. Le; Itaru Anraku; Michael Sakalian; David Einfeld; John Y. Dong
• Keywords: Agricultural; Drug Carriers; Vaccines, Synthetic; 0303 health sciences; Biomedical and clinical sciences; Alphavirus Infections; Arthritis; Genetic Vectors; Vaccination; Viral Vaccines; Antibodies, Viral; Adenoviridae; 3. Good health; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Biological sciences; Mice; 03 medical and health sciences; veterinary and food sciences; Animals; Female; Other biological sciences not elsewhere classified; Viremia; Chikungunya virus

Chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne alphavirus, recently caused the largest epidemic ever seen for this virus. Chikungunya disease primarily manifests as a painful and debilitating arthralgia/arthritis, and no effective drug or vaccine is currently available. Here we describe a recombinant chikungunya virus vaccine comprising a non-replicating complex adenovirus vector encoding the structural polyprotein cassette of chikungunya virus. A single immunisation with this vaccine consistently induced high titres of anti-chikungunya virus antibodies that neutralised both an old Asian isolate and a Réunion Island isolate from the recent epidemic. The vaccine also completely protected mice against viraemia and arthritic disease caused by both virus isolates.