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- Title
Maize-Produced Ag2 as a Subunit Vaccine for Valley Fever.
- Authors
Hayden, Celine A; Hung, Chiung-Yu; Zhang, Hao; Negron, Austin; Esquerra, Raymond; Ostroff, Gary; Abraham, Ambily; Lopez, Alejandro Gabriel; Gonzales, Juliet Elizabeth; Howard, John A
- Abstract
Coccidioides is the causative agent of San Joaquin Valley fever, a fungal disease prevalent in the semiarid regions of the Americas. Efforts to develop a fungal vaccine over the last 2 decades were unsuccessful. A candidate antigen, Antigen 2 (Ag2), is notoriously difficult to express in Escherichia coli, and this study sought to accumulate the antigen at high levels in maize. Transformed maize lines accumulated recombinant Ag2 at levels >1 g/kg. Mice immunized with this antigen and challenged with live Coccidioides arthroconidia showed a reduction in the fungal load when Ag2 derived from either E. coli or maize was loaded into glucan chitin particles. A fusion of Ag2 to dendritic cell carrier peptide (DCpep) induced a T-helper type 17 response in the spleen when orally delivered, indicative of a protective immune response. The maize production platform and the glucan chitin particle adjuvant system show promise for development of a Coccidioides vaccine, but further testing is needed to fully assess the optimal method of administration.
- Subjects
COCCIDIOIDOMYCOSIS; VACCINES; MYCOSES; ARID regions; CORN metabolism; ANIMAL experimentation; IMMUNOMODULATORS; COMPARATIVE studies; CORN; ESCHERICHIA coli; FUNGAL antigens; FUNGI; GLUCANS; IMMUNIZATION; RESEARCH methodology; MEDICAL cooperation; MICE; POLYSACCHARIDES; PROTEINS; RECOMBINANT proteins; RESEARCH; EVALUATION research
- Publication
Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2019, Vol 220, Issue 4, p615
- ISSN
0022-1899
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1093/infdis/jiz196