Article
Author: Belz, Gabrielle T ; Courtney, Isabel G ; Finn, Meredith ; Dold, Christina ; Hancock, Steven ; Sebina, Ismail ; Bickham, Nia ; Brouwer, Stephan ; Harbison-Price, Nichaela ; Green, Shannon ; Pullinger, Brody ; Plante, Obadiah ; De Oliveira, David M P ; Ericsson, Olivia ; Curren, Bodie F ; Cuellar, Celeste ; Davis, Laura ; Cork, Amanda J ; Richter, Johanna ; Aguirre, Miguel ; Bolton, Rhiannon A ; Elangovan, Gayathiri ; Pelingon, Ruby ; Walker, Mark J ; Na, Jack
A commercial vaccine to address the high global burden of Group A Streptococcus (GAS) disease is an urgent and unmet medical need. Messenger RNA (mRNA) lipid-nanoparticle (LNP) vaccines represent a largely untapped platform for targeting bacterial pathogens. Here, we evaluate the immunogenicity and preclinical efficacy of a multicomponent mRNA-LNP vaccine formulation based on the GAS vaccine, Combo#5. Combo#5 mRNA-LNP antigens confer protection from infection in mouse intraperitoneal and subcutaneous challenge models. Combo#5 mRNA-LNP vaccination generates significantly increased frequencies and numbers of effector type CD4+ and CD8 + T cells in the spleen, enhances T follicular helper cells, germinal center B cells and memory B cells in the spleen and draining lymph nodes, and boosts the production of antigen-specific antibodies. These findings demonstrate the potential of the mRNA-LNP platform for the development of vaccines against bacterial pathogens.