Posted by A VACCINE that masquerades as chikungunya virus might finally defeat the mosquito-borne disease.
In 2006 a single mutation in the virus allowed it to burst out of Africa via a new species of mosquito. Chikungunya now infects about 1 million people a year around the Indian Ocean and causes intense joint pain which can persist for years. It could invade temperate regions as the mosquitoes’ range expands.
Gary Nabel of the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues put genes that code for the virus’s protein coat into cultured human cells. The proteins assembled themselves into virus-like particles (VLPs), which mimic the virus but aren’t infectious. “We got structures that beautifully replicated the natural virus,” Nabel says.
Rhesus monkeys injected with the VLPs produced antibodies that gave them complete protection against the virus. Their antibodies also worked for immune-deficient mice that are normally killed by chikungunya (Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/nm.2105). Nabel hopes the vaccine will be tested in people in one to three years.
