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REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Vaccines and Molecular Therapeutics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1521104
This article is part of the Research Topic Next-Generation Vaccines Against Arboviruses: Innovations in Design, Delivery, and Immunological Insights View all articles
Insect-specific virus platforms for arbovirus vaccine development
Provisionally accepted- 1 School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- 2 GVN Center of Excellence, Australian Infectious Disease Research Centre, Herston, Queensland 4029 and 4072, Brisbane, Australia
- 3 Inflammation Biology Group, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Queensland, 4029, Australia., Brisbane, Australia
Certain insect-specific viruses (ISV), specifically the mosquito alphaviruses, Eilat and Yada Yada viruses, and orthoflaviviruses, Binjari, Aripo, YN15-283-02 and Chaoyang viruses, have emerged as potential platforms for generation of whole virus vaccines for human and veterinary applications. These ISVs are remarkably tolerant of the substitution of their structural polyproteins with those of alphaviruses and orthoflaviviruses that are pathogenic in humans and/or animals. The resulting ISV-based chimeric vaccines have been evaluated in mouse models and have demonstrated safety and efficacy in non-human primates, crocodiles and pigs. Targets include chikungunya, Venezuelan and eastern equine encephalitis, dengue, Zika, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile viruses. ISV-based chimeric vaccines provide authentically folded tertiary and quaternary whole virion particle structures to the immune system, a key feature for induction of protective antibody responses. These vaccines are manufactured in C6/36 or C7-10 mosquito cell lines, where they grow to high titers, but they do not replicate in vertebrate vaccine recipients. This review discusses the progress of these emerging technologies and addresses challenges related to adjuvanting, safety, and manufacturing..
Keywords: Vaccine, Arbovirus, Eilat virus, Binjari virus, Yada Yada virus, Aripo virus, YN15-283-02 virus, Chaoyang virus
Received: 01 Nov 2024; Accepted: 28 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hall, Nguyen, Khromykh and Suhrbier. 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:
Roy Hall, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Queensland, Australia
Andreas Suhrbier, Inflammation Biology Group, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Queensland, 4029, Australia., Brisbane, Australia
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.