List of Approved Projects

Funded Projects List of Approved Projects

7. An oral mucosal DNA vaccine for SARS coronavirus infections   Funds : Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases (investigator-initiated projects) Project Status : Closed Reference No. : 01030282 Project Title : An oral mucosal DNA vaccine for SARS coronavirus infections Applicant(s) : Yuen KY Woo CYP Lau KPS Affiliation(s) : Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong Approved Amount (HK$) : $802,360.00 Abstract : BACKGROUND: Due to the high mortality rate of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) infections, development of a vaccine is one of the paramount priorities. Previous studies have shown that the spike proteins of animal coronaviruses are highly immunogenic. Moreover, cell-mediated immune response generated through immunization with spike protein-based vaccine was found to elicit protective immune response in animals. We reported the use of live-attenuated Salmonella for delivery of DNA vaccine for hepatitis B virus, and have also shown that it elicited good cell-mediated immune response, and the response was able to reduce the hepatitis B surface antigen load and induce inflammatory changes in the liver of transgenic mice expressing hepatitis B surface antigen. AIMS: In the present project, we propose to test the feasibility of using the live-attenuated Salmonella system for delivery of DNA vaccine of the spike protein of SARS-CoV in mice, and compare the immunogenicity of oral DNA vaccine, naked DNA vaccine, and recombinant protein vaccine.METHODS: The spike protein of SARS-CoV will be cloned into two expression systems, one for eukaryotic and another prokaryotic expression. Spike protein will be purified from E. coli harboring the prokaryotic expression system. The spike protein in the eukaryotic system will be further transformed into live-attenuated Salmonella to generate the oral mucosal DNA vaccine. Mice will be immunized intraperitoneally using the recombinant spike protein vaccine, intramuscularly using the naked DNA vaccine, and orally using the mucasal DNA vaccine. Antibody and lymphocyte proliferation responses will be measured and compared. Keywords : DNA vaccine, SARS, coronavirus, spike protein, mucosal vaccine Instruments : Remarks : Dissemination Report : [PDF file] 01030282dr.pdf Final Report : [PDF file] 01030282fr.pdf [add to bookmark]

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Last revision date: 15 August 2006