Filtering by
- All Subjects: Vaccines
- Creators: School of Life Sciences
- Resource Type: Text
Moraxella catarrhalis is a gram negative commensal bacteria that is a primary cause of otitis media in infants and severe exacerbations of COPD in adults. M. catarrhalis treatment has become increasingly difficult and expensive over the past half-century due to the emergence of beta-lactamase producing strains. There are currently no vaccines available to protect against infections. In this paper, we propose a transcriptomics-based approach for identifying potential vaccine targets. Additionally, a novel method was used to create bacterial vaccine polypeptides composed of sequence conserved peptides secreted through the outer membrane. Polypeptides were tested for immunogenicity and protective capacity in mice. We show that relative abundance of outer membrane proteins does not correlate with immunogenicity. We also show promising results for polypeptide protection in a mouse pulmonary clearance model.
DNA nanotechnology is ideally suited for numerous applications from the crystallization and solution of macromolecular structures to the targeted delivery of therapeutic molecules. The foundational goal of structural DNA nanotechnology was the development of a lattice to host proteins for crystal structure solution. To further progress towards this goal, 36 unique four-armed DNA junctions were designed and crystallized for eventual solution of their 3D structures. While most of these junctions produced macroscale crystals which diffracted successfully, several prevented crystallization. Previous results used a fixed isomer and subsequent investigations adopted an alternate isomer to investigate the impact of these small sequence changes on the stability and structural properties of these crystals. DNA nanotechnology has also shown promise for a variety biomedical applications. In particular, DNA origami has been demonstrated as a promising tool for targeted and efficient delivery of drugs and vaccines due to their programmability and addressability to suit a variety of therapeutic cargo and biological functions. To this end, a previously designed DNA barrel nanostructure with a unique multimerizable pegboard architecture has been constructed and characterized via TEM for later evaluation of its stability under biological conditions for use in the targeted delivery of cargo, including CRISPR-containing adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and mRNA.
In this study, we investigated the inactivation of wild-type vMyx-GFP (MYXV) using different methods. Assays were performed in vitro to test the following inactivation methods: heat, longwave UV only, longwave UV with psoralen (P + LWUV), and psoralen (P) only. In vitro assays demonstrated that the psoralen alone treatment did not cause any inactivation. These results showed that effective inactivation using psoralen was likely reliant on subsequent UV irradiation, creating a synergistic effect. Additionally, the UV and P + LWUV treatment demonstrated inactivation of MYXV, although by different mechanisms, as the UV-only treated virus demonstrated background infection, while P + LWUV treated virus did not. In mice, P + LWUV and UV treatment of MYXV demonstrated to be effective inactivation methods and likely preserved the antigenic epitopes of MYXV, allowing for the production of neutralizing antibodies in mice. More research is recommended on the heat treatment of MYXV as neutralizing antibodies were not observed, possibly due to the treatment denaturing antigenic epitopes or needing more booster injections to reach the threshold antibody concentration for protection. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the intraperitoneal (IP) injection of inactivated MYXV was superior to the subcutaneous injection in eliciting a strong immune response. The increased neutralizing antibodies observed after IP injection could be due to the advantage that the IP route has of reaching lymphoid tissue faster.
themselves as well as their children. Included is a brief history on vaccines, a section describing
their mechanism of action, as well as information on how the vaccines work within our bodies.
The focus will then turn to the patient’s choice on whether or not to vaccinate themselves or their
child, including factors such as socioeconomic status, education level and their location. Within
this paper are the views of anti-vaccinators, as well as the views of pro-vaccinators and
suggestions on how to reeducate the public. I conclude that the AFIX model is of particular value
in public education: This involves Assessment of immunization coverage, Feedback in
informing providers of their performance, Incentives to help keep them motivated, and eXchange
of information which can be combined with incentives. While the AFIX model has focused on
doctors and nurses in the past, I conclude this model would be most effectively employed with
pharmacists, who see patients more routinely and often have higher levels of trust among the
general public.
Plant-made virus-like particles (VLPs), composed of HIV-1 Gag and deconstructed gp41 proteins, have been shown to be safe and immunogenic in mice. Here, we report the successful production of HIV-1 Gag/dgp41 VLPs in Nicotiana benthamiana, using an enhanced geminivirus-based expression vector. This novel vector results in unique expression kinetics, with peak protein accumulation and minimal necrosis achieved on day 4 post-infiltration. In comparing various purification strategies, it was determined that a 20% ammonium sulfate precipitation is an effective and efficient method for removing plant proteins and purifying the recombinant VLPs of interest. If further purification is required, this may be achieved through ultracentrifugation. VLPs are a useful platform for a variety of biomedical applications and developing the technology to efficiently produce VLPs in the plant expression system is of critical importance.
The COVID 19 pandemic has highlighted the necessity of accurately and simply relying scientific discovery and information to the public. Among scientists, the practice is to reduce jargon, engage the audience through storytelling, and include enough detail to give a broad understanding of a narrow topic. Conflict between journalists and scientists leads to a creation of a different narrative for the general public. The news site CNN.com was searched with the google archive function by year for articles that included the keyword vaccine. Articles were sorted into categories of main focus such as political, cultural and scientific or mixed. Results were analyzed and conclusions made about the amount of content in each category for the kind of narrative being written about vaccines, with most years having most articles in the political category. Possible effectiveness of mixed categories were discussed and areas future research identified.