Newcastle disease virus vectored vaccines as bivalent or antigen delivery vaccines

Choi, Kang-Seuk

NDV vaccine strains have been used as virus vectors to develop antigen delivery vaccines for use in humans ( [37] , Ebola virus (EBOV) [38] , NiV [25] , human norovirus (NoV) [39] , respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) [40] , and human parainfluenza virus 3 (HPIV-3) [41] . Currently, no live attenuated vaccine is available for HIV-1. However, NDVs have been used as a vaccine vector to deliver the Env and Gag antigens of HIV [32, 34, 35] . For example, Khattar et al. [34] developed two NDV-vectored HIV vaccines (rNDV-Gag/Env and rNDV-Env/Gag) expressing gp160 Env and p55 Gag, respectively (these genes were inserted between the P and M genes of NDV). Intranasal immunization of guinea pigs with these vaccines induced long-lasting Env-and Gag-specific humoral immune responses. They also induced a marked and efficient cellular and protective immune response in mice after challenge with vaccinia viruses expressing HIV-1 Env and Gag. These results suggest that vaccination with a single NDV vector coexpressing Env and Gag is a promising strategy that increases vaccine immunogenicity and subsequent protective efficacy against HIV.