AVP vaccinontwikkeling (KB-12-005.01-040)

African swine fever (ASF) is a haemorrhagic and lethal viral disease in pigs which is endemic in Africa. However, since 2007 also endemic regions in the east of Europe have arisen, mainly because the only available control methods as hygienic husbandry and preventive stamping out were insufficient. The lack of a vaccine is therefore increasingly seen as an unmet need. Attempts to develop a vaccine have so far been stranded because of the complexity of the virus, but also by the lack of known antigens of the cell-mediated (T-cell) immune response which is necessary for the effectiveness of a ASF-vaccine.
The research question this project addresses is whether it is possible with the current techniques of computational prediction of antigens, particularly of epitopes - the immune active portion of an antigen - to develop a vaccine that is protective against ASF. It is aimed at a vaccine that is independent of the several well-known AVP virus strains and also widely applicable for all pigs. On the basis of the complete genome sequences of known ASF isolates and the genome sequence of the pig the epitope prediction program NetMHCpan will be used to determine a list of T-cell epitopes that are independent of virus strain or pig. These epitopes form the basis of a DNA vaccine allowing multiple  epitope candidates per vaccine to be tested. Using the Dutch strain from 1986 protection by vaccination will be assessed by determination of survival, scores of clinical symptoms, immunological responses and presence of the ASF virus. After this proof of principle individual T-cell antigens will be tested as a sub unit vaccine formulation. This will bring closer a more  realistic application for practice.