Studying the Potential Role of Adjuvants in T-cell Based Vaccine Development

Abstract

Vaccination is the best approach to provide a long-term immunity against disease. To achieve sterile protection against various pathogen such as intracellular as well as extracellular both humoral and cellular immune response plays important part. Various types of vaccine approaches used nowadays but the road of safe and effective vaccines is still needed. Protein subunit vaccine are preferred because of its safety and effectiveness but are poor immunogenic. Different studies have shown that B cell plays prominent role in generating immune response and provide sterile protection. Purified protein provide no or very little T cell response, so during vaccination adjuvants are used to increase the effectiveness and trigger the suitable immune response. Adjuvants are the vaccine component that enhances magnitude, breadth and durability of immune response. With respect to this here we are exploring the role of different adjuvants such as Poly (I:C), R848, MPLA, and Addavax. Poly (I:C) is a TLR 3 agonist which is responsible for antigen specific response. R848 is TLR7/8 agonist and has the ability to generate high antibody titre. On the other hand MPLA is a lipopolysaccharide derivative. It is potent stimulator of T cell and antibody response. It acts by activating TLR4. It is even approved for human use. Addavax is another such adjuvant which is frequently used for immunization. It is squalene based oil in water emulsion. It induces chemokine response by recruiting neutrophils, basophils and dendritic cells. We immunize C57BL/6 mice with Model antigen ovalbumin (OVA) in presence of different adjuvant to study the antibody titer as well as antigen specific CD8+ T cell population. We study the phenotype of B-cell under the influence of protein antigen. Another objective was screening and identification of malarial protein antigen having both B and T cell epitopes through in-silico screening method with the broad perspective of reverse vaccinology