Preventative Vaccines for Zika Virus Outbreak: Preliminary Evaluation

Kim, Eun; Erdos, Geza; Huang, Shaohua; Kenniston, Thomas; Falo, Louis D.; Gambotto, Andrea

We then tested the ability of Ad5.ZIKV-Efl and MNA-ZIKV-rEfl to elicit a specific anti-ZIKV immune response in vivo. C57BL/6 mice were inoculated s.c. with 10 11 vp of Ad5.ZIKV-Efl or i.d. with 20 μg of MNA-ZIKV-rEfl, or with PBS on day 0 followed by booster immunization on day 14 with the same dose i.n. or i.d., respectively (Fig. 2a) . At 0, 2, 4, and 6 weeks post prime immunization, sera were obtained from all mice and screened for the presence of ZIKV-specific antibodies using ELISA analysis. ZIKV-specific antibodies were detected as soon as two weeks after the first immunization in the sera of mice vaccinated with Ad5.ZIKV-Efl (P = 0.0002), while mice immunized MNA-ZIKV-rEfl showed significant titers at four weeks after the booster immunization (P b 0.05) when compared with the sera of mice immunized with PBS (Fig. 2b) .