Abstract:
The frequent epidemics and endemics caused by Dengue virus have imposed a threat
on global health. The risk of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) associated with
four different serotypes of DENV is the footprint in serious illnesses like Dengue
hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. The death rate caused by DENV has
also been escalated due to lack in treatment and inadequate prevention of the disease.
There is an ultimate failure due to improper and trivial measures to control the vector
(mosquito) spread. Such circumstances demand an effective vaccine to not only prevent
the outbreaks, but also outrageous diseases caused by DENV.
Vaccination and immunization have been always a choice to prevent infectious disease.
However, developing a vaccine against DENV is difficult as it has to effective against
all of its serotypes. A tetravalent vaccine is not only a need to combat all of the
circulating serotypes infections but to eliminate the risk of ADE.
To circumvent the laborious and expensive vaccine construction like live attenuated
vaccines, mRNA has been selected to accomplish the objective. This research utilized
multiple epitopes from DENV envelope, which is highly immunogenic, to construct
mRNA vaccine against all serotypes of DENV. The mRNA was transcribed in vitro
and transfected into peripheral blood mononuclear cells PBMCs to determine its
immunogenicity. The in vitro transcribed mRNA proved to increase the mRNA levels
of both T helper 1 (TH1) response inducer, interlukin-12 and TH1 cytokine interferon
gamma which illustrates the generation of memory T lymphocytes. Thus, it is a
promising candidate to be evaluated further as a vaccine against DENV.
