Recombinant Flavivirus (including Dengue and Zika) Quaternary Epitopes for Vaccines and Diagnostics

Technology Overview

Dengue virus is the causative agent of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever, but there is currently no approved vaccine for the virus. Research at UNC has identified that a majority of the strongly neutralizing antibodies produced during dengue infection are targeted to the quaternary structure of the envelope E protein. However, since recombinant proteins are secreted as monomers, the key quaternary epitopes targeted by human antibodies are not displayed on recombinant proteins limiting effective vaccine design. A method has been developed to assemble recombinant dengue envelope proteins that display the quaternary structures needed to induce potent neutralizing antibodies. The ability to generate neutralizing antibodies from recombinant quaternary envelope proteins could expedite the development of an effective vaccine against dengue virus.

Further Details:

Metz, S. W., et al. (2017). In Vitro Assembly and Stabilization of Dengue and Zika Virus Envelope Protein Homo-Dimers. Sci. Rep., 7(1):4524. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04767-6

Benefits

• Recombinant dengue quaternary envelope proteins provide optimal epitopes for vaccine and diagnostic design
• Antibodies against dengue envelope E proteins are more likely to provide to a broad protective response against all four dengue serotypes
• Displaying quaternary epitopes on recombinant proteins can be used to develop vaccines against other flaviviruses as well as dengue virus, such as zika