Development and Demonstration of Virus-Inspired DNA Origami (VIDO) Vaccines

Parabon NanoLabs (PNL) has designed and demonstrated the feasibility for a new hybrid vaccine nanostructure that is based upon a DNA origami that can include protein antigens or epitopes, immune stimulators, cell targeting ligands and a transfection plasmid.This approach offers the opportunity for crafting molecularly defined vaccine nanostructures that stimulate a specific primary response that is prolonged by the antigen production by transfected cells.Cell targeting and stimulation may also serve to direct whether an antibody or a cell-mediated response occurs following vaccination. Development of this platform resulted from in silico modeling, and PNL proposes to expand its InSequeo modeling software to create virus-inspired DNA origami (VIDO) vaccines.Based on the availability of recombinant antigens, their gene sequences, and reagents for detection, PNL proposes to demonstrate the first VIDO vaccine using the HIV-1 antigens: 1) HIV-1 Gag as a T cell mediated immune antigen to direct T cell responses against the virus, and 2) an HIV-1 gp140 Env Foldon construct to generate neutralizing antibody (Ab) responses.Results from these studies can be applied to the development of vaccines against other viral and bacterial pathogens that have proved difficult to control through vaccination.