CD8+ T Cells Responding to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Nucleocapsid Protein Delivered by Vaccinia Virus MVA in Mice

CD8+ T Cells Responding to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Nucleocapsid Protein Delivered by Vaccinia Virus MVA in Mice

Svenja Veit, Sylvia Jany, Robert Fux, Gerd Sutter, Asisa Volz

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a novel infectious agent causing severe respiratory disease and death in humans, was first described in 2012. Antibodies directed against the MERS-CoV spike (S) protein are thought to play a major role in controlling MERS-CoV infection and in mediating vaccine-induced protective immunity. In contrast, relatively little is known about the role of T cell responses and the antigenic targets of MERS-CoV that are recognized by CD8+ T cells. In this study, the highly conserved MERS-CoV nucleocapsid (N) protein served as a target immunogen to elicit MERS-CoV-specific cellular immune responses. Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA), a safety-tested strain of vaccinia virus for preclinical and clinical vaccine research, was used for generating MVA-MERS-N expressing recombinant N protein. Overlapping peptides spanning the whole MERS-CoV N polypeptide were used to identify major histocompatibility complex class I/II-restricted T cell responses in BALB/c mice immunized with MVA-MERS-N. We have identified a H2-d restricted decamer peptide epitope in the MERS-N protein with CD8+ T cell antigenicity. The identification of this epitope, and the availability of the MVA-MERS-N candidate vaccine, will help to evaluate MERS-N-specific immune responses and the potential immune correlates of vaccine-mediated protection in the appropriate murine models of MERS-CoV infection.

2018

MERS-CoV, MERS-CoV nucleocapsid protein, murine CD8+ T cell epitope, MVA vaccine

DOI: 10.3390/v10120718

Viruses

MDPI AG

Microbiology

EN