Characterization of Antibodies Induced by Vaccination with Hepatitis C Virus Envelope Glycoproteins

The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2010;202:000–000
© 2010 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved.
0022-1899/2010/20206-00XX$15.00
DOI: 10.1086/655902

BRIEF REPORT

Ranjit Ray,1 Keith Meyer,1 Arup Banerjee,1 Arnab Basu,1,a Stephen Coates,2 Sergio Abrignani,2,a Michael Houghton, 2,a Sharon E. Frey,1 and Robert B. Belshe 1

1 Department of Internal Medicine and Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri; 2 Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Emeryville, California

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) envelope glycoproteins E1 and E2 were used with MF59 adjuvant as a candidate vaccine for a phase 1 safety and immunogenicity trial. Ten of 41 vaccinee serum samples displayed a neutralization titer of 1:20 against vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)–HCV pseudotype, 15 of 36 serum samples tested had a neutralization titer of 1:400 against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–HCV pseudotype, and 10 of 36 serum samples tested had a neutralization titer of 1:20 against cell culture–grown HCV genotype 1a. Neutralizing serum samples had increased affinity levels and displayed >2‐fold higher specific activity levels to well‐characterized epitopes on E1/E2, especially to the hypervariable region 1 of E2.

Received 27 February 2010; accepted 19 April 2010; electronically published 2 August 2010.

Reprints or correspondence: R. Ray, Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, 1100 S Grand Blvd, Edward A. Doisy Research Center, 8th Floor, St. Louis, MO 63104 (rayr@slu.edu).

Potential conflicts of interest: S.C., S.A., and M.H. were scientists at Chiron Corporation, currently owned by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics. All other authors report no potential conflicts.

Financial support: National Institutes of Health (grant AI068769 and contract N01‐AI‐25464).

a Present affiliations: Microbiotix, Worcester, Massachusetts (A.B.); Istituto Nazionale di Genetica Molecolare–INGM, Milan, Italy (S.A.); Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (M.H.).

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