A Bivalent Human Norovirus Vaccine Induces Homotypic and Heterotypic Neutralizing Antibodies

Robert L Atmar; Khalil Ettayebi; Sasirekha Ramani; Frederick H Neill; Lisa Lindesmith; Ralph S Baric; Amanda Brinkman; Ralph Braun; James Sherwood; Mary K Estes

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiad401

A Bivalent Human Norovirus Vaccine Induces Homotypic and Heterotypic Neutralizing Antibodies

J Infect Dis. 2023 Oct 2:jiad401. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiad401. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Robert L Atmar^{1

2}, Khalil Ettayebi², Sasirekha Ramani², Frederick H Neill², Lisa Lindesmith³, Ralph S Baric³, Amanda Brinkman⁴, Ralph Braun⁴, James Sherwood⁵, Mary K Estes^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Departments of Medicine and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
² Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
³ Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
⁴ Takeda Vaccines Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Takeda Pharmaceuticals International AG, Zurich, Switzerland.

PMID: 37781879
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiad401

Abstract

A GII.2 outbreak in an efficacy study of a bivalent virus-like particle (VLP) norovirus vaccine, TAK-214, in healthy US adults provided an opportunity to examine GII.4 homotypic vs. GII.2 heterotypic responses to vaccination and infection. Three serological assays (VLP-binding, histoblood group antigen-blocking, and neutralizing) were performed for each genotype. Results were highly correlated within a genotype but not between genotypes. Although the vaccine provided protection from GII.2-associated disease, little GII.2-specific neutralization occurred after vaccination. Choice of antibody assay can affect assessments of human norovirus vaccine immunogenicity.

Keywords: VLP; binding antibody; histoblood group antigen-blocking antibody; human norovirus; neutralizing antibody; vaccine.