Accelerating Vaccine Adjuvant Screening: Early Follicular Dendritic Cell and Germinal Center B Cell Biomarkers Predict Protective Efficacy.

ABSTRACT: Background: The current assessment method of the protective efficacy of adjuvanted vaccines remains slow and labor-intensive, hindered by prolonged immunization protocols and complex assays. Methods: To overcome this bottleneck, we demonstrate that early segregated cellular biomarkers enable rapid prediction of protection, using a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pre-fusion F (pre-F) protein model with diverse adjuvants in mice. Results: We identified that germinal center (GC) B cell responses (Days 7 and 9 post-immunization) strongly aligned with protective efficacy, except for Alum, which achieved MF59-level protection despite lower GC responses. Crucially, follicular dendritic cell (FDC) abundance at day 7 universally predicted protection across all adjuvants, incl

SUBMITTER: Zhong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12567668 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature