IMMUNIZATION OF COTTONTOP TAMARINS AND RABBITS WITH A CANDIDATE VACCINE AGAINST THE EPSTEIN-BARR-VIRUS BASED ON THE MAJOR VIRAL ENVELOPE GLYCOPROTEIN GP340 AND ALUM

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with a range of life-threat ening diseases in humans. Development of an effective vaccine has ther efore been an important objective. One problem in the development of a subunit vaccine for human administration is the selection of a satisf actory adjuvant since the only one currently licensed for human use is alum, although this is not considered to be very effective. The prese nt study demonstrated that a subunit vaccine composed of the EBV envel ope glycoprotein gp340 with alum as the adjuvant did elicit protective immunity against EBV-induced lymphoma in three out of five cottontop tamarins. Furthermore, rabbits immunized with gp340/alum developed the same range of antibody responses as rabbits immunized with gp340/SAF- 1, an experimental adjuvant claimed to be more effective than alum. Th erefore, these results indicate that alum should be evaluated as an ad juvant as part of a human trial of a gp340-based subunit vaccine.