Human Antibody Repertoire following Ebola Virus Infection and Vaccination

Sandra Fuentes; Supriya Ravichandran; Elizabeth M Coyle; Laura Klenow; Surender Khurana

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.100920

Human Antibody Repertoire following Ebola Virus Infection and Vaccination

iScience. 2020 Mar 27;23(3):100920. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.100920. Epub 2020 Feb 19.

Authors

Sandra Fuentes¹, Supriya Ravichandran¹, Elizabeth M Coyle¹, Laura Klenow¹, Surender Khurana²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Viral Products, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 10903 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20993, USA.
² Division of Viral Products, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 10903 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20993, USA. Electronic address: surender.khurana@fda.hhs.gov.

Abstract

Limited knowledge exists on the quality of polyclonal antibody response generated following Ebola virus (EBOV) infection compared with vaccination. Polyclonal antibody repertoire in plasma following EBOV infection in survivors was compared with ChAd3-MVA prime-boost human vaccination. Higher antibody binding and affinity to GP was observed in survivors compared with vaccinated plasma that correlated with EBOV neutralization. Surprisingly, a predominant IgM response was generated after prime-boost vaccination, whereas survivors demonstrated IgG-dominant antibody response. EBOV infection induced more diverse antibody epitope repertoire compared with vaccination. A strong binding to antigenic sites in the fusion peptide and another in the highly conserved GP2-HR2 domain was preferentially recognized by EBOV survivors than vaccinated individuals that correlated strongly with EBOV neutralization titers. These findings will help development and evaluation of effective Ebola countermeasures including therapeutics and vaccines.

Keywords: Viral Microbiology; Virology.

Published by Elsevier Inc.