Immune response and partial protection against heterologous foot-and-mouth disease virus induced by dendrimer peptides in cattle

IVANA SORIA; VALERIA QUATTROCCHI; CECILIA LANGELLOTTI; PEREZ FILGUEIRA, DANIEL MARIANO; PEGA, JUAN; VICTORIA GNAZZO; ALEJANDRA ROMERA; SCHAMMAS, JUAN MANUEL; BUCAFUSCO, DANILO; DI GIACOMO, SEBASTIAN; GARCIA DE LA TORRE, B; ANDREU, DAVID; SOBRINO, FRANCISCO; BLANCO, E.; ZAMORANO, PATRICIA

Journal of Immunology Research

Hindawi

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2017

2314-8861

Synthetic peptides mimicking protective B- and T-cell epitopes are good candidates for safer, more effective FMD vaccines. Nevertheless, previous studies of immunization with linear peptides showed that they failed to induce solid protection in cattle. Dendrimeric peptides displaying two or four copies of a peptide corresponding to the B-cell epitope VP1 [136?154] of type O FMDV 01/UK linked through thioether bonds to a single copy of the T-cell epitope 3A [21-35] (termed B2T and B4T, respectively) afforded protection in vaccinated pigs. In this work, we show that dendrimeric peptides B2T and B4T can elicit specific humoral responses in cattle and confer partial protection against challenge with a heterologous type O virus (O1Campos). This protective response correlated with the induction of specific T-cells as well as with an anamnestic antibody response upon virus challenge, as shown by the detection of virus-specific antibody-secreting cells (ASC) in lymphoid tissues distal from the inoculation point.