Arenavirus Glycan Shield Promotes Neutralizing Antibody Evasion and Protracted Infection.

ABSTRACT: Arenaviruses such as Lassa virus (LASV) can cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans. As a major impediment to vaccine development, delayed and weak neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses represent a unifying characteristic of both natural infection and all vaccine candidates tested to date. To investigate the mechanisms underlying arenavirus nAb evasion we engineered several arenavirus envelope-chimeric viruses and glycan-deficient variants thereof. We performed neutralization tests with sera from experimentally infected mice and from LASV-convalescent human patients. NAb response kinetics in mice correlated inversely with the N-linked glycan density in the arenavirus envelope protein's globular head. Additionally and most intriguingly, infection with fully glycosylated viruses elicited an

SUBMITTER: Sommerstein R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4654586 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature