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Rapid In Vivo Assessment of Adjuvant's Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes Generation Capabilities for Vaccine Development
Published on: June 19, 2018
Accelerating Vaccine Adjuvant Screening: Early Follicular Dendritic Cell and Germinal Center B Cell Biomarkers
Yiwei Zhong1, Mingyue Chen1, Hongzhe Lin1
1MOE/NHC/CAMS Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Pathogenic Microorganisms and Infection, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
None:
Background: The current assessment method of the protective efficacy of adjuvanted vaccines remains slow and labor-intensive, hindered by prolonged immunization protocols and complex assays. Methods: To overcome this bottleneck, we demonstrate that early segregated cellular biomarkers enable rapid prediction of protection, using a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pre-fusion F (pre-F) protein model with diverse adjuvants in mice. Results: We identified that germinal center (GC) B cell responses (Days 7 and 9 post-immunization) strongly aligned with protective efficacy, except for Alum, which achieved MF59-level protection despite lower GC responses. Crucially, follicular dendritic cell (FDC) abundance at day 7 universally predicted protection across all adjuvants, including Alum, drastically shortening discovery time and effort from at least 4-6 weeks to within 1 week. Conclusions: FDCs and GC B cells serve as complementary early biomarkers that accurately forecast vaccine efficacy. This approach could potentially reduce the need for prolonged immunization regimens by cellular profiling on days 7-9, offering a modest step toward streamlining adjuvant selection and informing vaccine design.
