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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Vaccines and Molecular Therapeutics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1519866
This article is part of the Research Topic Broad Spectrum Viral Vaccines View all 3 articles

Adjuvant-free, self-assembling ferritin nanoparticle vaccine coupled with influenza virus hemagglutinin protein carrying M1 and PADRE epitopes elicits cross-protective immune responses

Provisionally accepted
Yongqiang Zhao Yongqiang Zhao 1Shuangshuang Guo Shuangshuang Guo 2Jia Liu Jia Liu 1Yating Wang Yating Wang 1Bo Wang Bo Wang 2Chun Peng Chun Peng 3Enqi Du Enqi Du 2,3,4*
  • 1 College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China
  • 2 Yangling Carey Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Xianyang, China
  • 3 Chengdu NanoVAX Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Chengdu, China
  • 4 Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Influenza viruses pose a significant threat to global public health. Several influenza pandemic outbreaks have had serious economic and public health implications. Current influenza virus vaccines generally provide strain-specific protection and must be rapidly produced annually to match the circulating viruses. Developing influenza vaccines that confer protection against a broad range of viruses will have a positive impact on public health. In this study, we aimed to develop a ferritin-based influenza nanoparticle vaccine with a broad protective spectrum to enhance the immune response against diverse influenza viruses. Results: We generated an adjuvant-free, self-assembling nanoparticle vaccine against diverse influenza A viruses. This nanoparticle vaccine displayed multi-antigen targets on the surface of Helicobacter pylori ferritin, which consists of the ectodomain of hemagglutinin of the H3N2 virus and three tandem highly conserved influenza M1 epitopes fused with the universal helper T-cell epitope PADRE, named HMP-NP. HMP-NPs were expressed in a soluble form in the baculovirus-insect cell system and self-assembled into homogeneous nanoparticles. Animal immunization studies showed that the HMP-NP nanovaccine elicited 4-fold higher haemagglutination inhibition (HAI) titers than inactivated influenza vaccine. And neutralization titers induced by HMP-NPs against the H3N2 virus and heterologous strains of the H1N1 and H9N2 viruses were ~8, 12.4 and 16 times higher than inactivated influenza vaccine, respectively. Meanwhile, we also observed that the number of IFN-γ-and IL-4-secreting cells induced by HMP-NPs were ~2.5 times higher than inactivated influenza vaccine. robust humoral and cellular

    Keywords: Influenza Virus, Nanoparticles, Adjuvant-free, cross-protection, Vaccines

    Received: 30 Oct 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Guo, Liu, Wang, Wang, Peng and Du. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Enqi Du, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.