Prime-Boost Vaccination Based on Nanospheres and MVA Encoding the Nucleoprotein of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Elicits Broad Immune Responses

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is an emerging, widely distributed zoonotic tick-borne pathogen. The virus causes severe disease in humans, and numerous wild and domestic animals act as reservoirs of it. Unfortunately, there are no effective therapies or safe vaccines commercialized nowadays for this particular virus. As CCHF (Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever) is a serious threat to public health, there is an urgent need to investigate the development of safe and effective vaccination strategies further. Methods: In this work, we have employed two immunization platforms based on protein nanoparticles and a modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) viral vector using the nucleoprotein (NP) as the target antigen. The humoral and cellular immune responses were characterized by ELISA, ICS, and cytokine measurement. Results: This work shows that a single dose of the vaccine candidates was not as immunogenic as the heterologous vaccination using nanoparticles and MVA. A prime with NP nanoparticles (NS-NP) and a boost with MVA-expressing NP were capable of triggering significant levels of humoral and cellular immune responses against CCHFV in mice. Conclusions: Our study shows that the NS-NP/MVA-NP vaccination strategy effectively elicits a robust humoral and cellular immune response in a mouse model, emphasizing its potential as a protective approach against CCHFV lineages.