Varicella-Zoster Virus Subunit Vaccine

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) causes chickenpox (Varicella) in children and shingles (Zoster) in elderly and immunosuppressed individuals. An attenuated VZV vaccine has been approved for general immunization to prevent varicella and zoster in the United States. Although this vaccine provides a high degree of protection against virus infection, the virus becomes latent in dorsal root ganglia and will reactivate to produce zoster. Therefore, there is a need for developing additional VZV vaccines that are capable of eliciting immune response to the virus but will not establish viral latency. Our studies have been focused on the development of a truncated secretory VZV glycoprotein (VZVgE) subunit vaccine. The results from our studies have shown that the VZV subunit vaccine: (1) elicits the induction of neutralizing antibodies in animals as well as in humans; and (2) stimulates the induction of VZVgE-specic antibodies in VZV-seropositive human mononuclear cells. Such a VZV glycoprotein antigen, therefore, may have the potential to be used as a candidate VZV glycoprotein subunit vaccine for prevention of primary VZV infection (Varicella) or boosting immune response against VZV reactivation (Zoster) in adults, the elderly and immunosuppressed individuals.

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