Construction of Opa-Positive and Opa-Negative Strains of Neisseria meningitidis to Evaluate a Novel Meningococcal Vaccine.pdfVIP

Construction of Opa-Positive and Opa-Negative Strains of Neisseria meningitidis to Evaluate a Novel Meningococcal Vaccine 1,2 1 1 1 3 Manish Sadarangani *, J. Claire Hoe , Martin J. Callaghan , Claire Jones , Hannah Chan , 1 ´ ` 1 1 4 Katherine Makepeace , Helene Daniels-Treffandier , Mary E. Deadman , Christopher Bayliss , 3 5 1 Ian Feavers , Peter van der Ley , Andrew J. Pollard 1 Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford and the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2 Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 3 Division of Bacteriology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, 4 Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom, 5 Department of Vaccinology, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands Abstract Neisseria meningitidis is a major global pathogen causing invasive disease with a mortality of 5–10%. Most disease in developed countries is caused by serogroup B infection, against which there is no universal vaccine. Opacity-associated adhesin (Opa) proteins are major meningococcal outer membrane proteins, which have shown recent promise as a potential novel vaccine. Immunisation of mice with different Opa variants elicited high levels of meningococcal-specific