Transfer of Anti-Rotavirus Antibodies during Pregnancy and in Milk Following Maternal Vaccination with a Herpes Simplex Virus Type-1 Amplicon Vector

Meier, Anita F.; Suter, Mark; Schraner, Elisabeth M.; Humbel, Bruno M.; Tobler, Kurt; Ackermann, Mathias; Laimbacher, Andrea S.

We injected female mice with 10 6 transducing units (TU) per dose intramuscularly (i.m.) in a prime-boost regimen with sWa[VP2/6/7] or the GFP encoding amplicon vector as control. Five days after the first immunization, males were added to the females for mating ( Figure 3A ). Nineteen days after the prime immunization, dams were boosted. Blood and milk samples from dams were collected after parturition and tested for RV specific IgG antibodies using a RV (strain Wa) specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Rotavirus specific IgG antibodies were found in sera of all sWa[VP2/6/7] immunized mice that differed significantly from the sera of GFP immunized control mice ( Figure 3B ). The data used to generate the plot in 3B as well as the number of animals included in this study and p-values are provided in the Appendix A as Table A1 . Mice immunized with sWa[VP2/6/7] showed a relative RV-specific IgG (rIgG) level of 54.85% at day 10 post-booster immunization (dpb), which decreased to 37.89% rIgG at 14 dpb and then decreased to 23.78% rIgG at 20 dpb. Relative IgG of pre-immune sera from animals of both groups was close to 0 (rIgG value of 1.45% for animals of the sWa[VP2/6/7] group and 0.69% in animals of the GFP group). The rIgG levels of the GFP vector immunized control group were low over the entire duration of the experiments with 2.15% at 10 dpb, 1.38% at 14 dpb and 1.92% at 20 dpb. This indicates that a RV specific antibody response was triggered upon sWa[VP2/6/7] vector immunization.