Functional activity of antisera against recombinant Zika virus envelope protein subunits expressed in Escherichia coli

Abstract

19The global Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak across continents has been drawing research attentions 20 to researchers and healthcare professionals. It highlights the urgent development of ZIKV 21 vaccines that offer rapid, precise and specific protection to those living in the high-risk regions -22 the tropical and subtropical regions. As a public health priority, there is a progressive 23 development in the discovery of vaccine candidates and design in recent years. Many efforts 24 have been placed in the in vitro development of ZIKV subunits as the vaccine candidate in 25 various protein expression systems, including bacteria, yeast, plant cells, insect cells and 26 mammalian cells. However, due to the lack of knowledge on humoral and cellular immune 27 responses against virus vaccines, a commercialised vaccine against Dengue virus (DENV) has 28 been suspended due to a health scare in Philippines. Moreover, the closely-related DENV and 29 ZIKV has indicated serological cross-reactivity between both viruses. This has led to greater 30 attentions to precautions needed during the design of ZIKV and DENV vaccines. In this study, 31 we pre-selected, synthesised and expressed the domain III of ZIKV envelope protein (namely 32 rEDIII) based on a previously-established report (GenBank: AMC13911.