Simple vaccines from DNA launched suicidal flaviviruses

Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis D virus (HDV), and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections constitute major global health problems as 350, 15 and 170 million people are chronically infected with HBV, HDV, and HCV, respectively. Chronic infections with HBV, HDV, and/or HCV are major causes for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Hence, therapy is well justified despite high costs and side effects. Using DNA as a vaccine platform is highly attractive from an industrial perspective since DNA is easy and cheap to produce and has an excellent stability even at room temperature. Thus, these intrinsic characteristics make DNA vaccines highly suitable for large-scale vaccinations under simple conditions. However, DNA vaccines have not yet reached their full potential. In this project we develop a new type of DNA-based therapeutic vaccine for treatment of chronic HBV, HDV, and HCV infections using suicidal flaviviral replicon models, based on the tick borne encephalitis virus and Langat virus.

Publications

Melik, W., Ellencrona, K, Wigerius, M., Hedström, C., Elväng A., and Johansson, M. Two PDZ binding motifs within NS5 have roles in Tick-borne encephalitis virus replication, 2012, Virus research 169(1) 54-62

Wigerius M., Melik W., Elväng A. and Johansson M. Rac1 and Scribble are targets in arrest of neurite outgrowth by TBE virus NS5, Molecular and cellular neuroscience 2010 260-271