Multiple Antigenic Peptides as Vaccine Platform for the Induction of Humoral Responses Against Dengue-2 Virus

Dengue is an important agent of human disease for which no licensed vaccine is available to the public. We used multiple antigenic peptides (MAPs) as an antigen carrier for the development of subunit vaccines against dengue-2 virus (DEN-2). Commercially available software (MacVector™ 7.0) was used to identify potential antigenic B-cell epitopes of E-glycoprotein. A total of 60 BALB/c mice were immunized with 12 recombinant DEN-2-specific MAPs and the humoral immune response was assessed by anti-DEN-2 ELISA and PRNT₅₀ assays. Anti-DEN-2 ELISA showed high levels of anti-DEN-2 antibodies and post-immune sera reduced viral infectivity and prevented infection of monkey kidney cells (LLC-MK₂) with live DEN-2 virus. Seven neutralizing DEN-2 epitopes were identified that generated PRNT₅₀ titers of up to 1:160. Our findings show that the MAP platform can be used as an antigen-presenting platform for dengue vaccine development.