Human antibody responses to circulating monkeypox virus demonstrate the need for the first mpox-specific vaccine

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Presentation Time: 03:15 PM - 04:30 PM
Poster Board Number: B922
Abstract ID: 4437

Presenting Author:
Camila H Coelho , Principal Investigator at Icahn Sch. of Med., Mount Sinai, Icahn Sch. of Med., Mount Sinai

Abstract:

Our lab applies cutting-edge human B cell immunology approaches to inform the generation of vaccines against emerging viruses. Here, we leveraged our antibody discovery expertise to dissect a roadmap to use B cell immunology to propose the first vaccine against monkeypox virus (MPXV). Responsible for causing mpox, MPVX has infected more than 90,000 people in 2022-23, becoming a new STD.  To prevent the infection, it is necessary to characterize mpox-specific proteins, given that smallpox vaccines are shown not to protect against mpox fully. We describe that H3L and A35R MPVX proteins are most interesting, considering their capacity to elicit robust antibody and B cell responses in convalescent individuals but not in smallpox-vaccine recipients, implicating an infection-driven response. We are comparing the binding, affinity, and functional activity of human mAbs obtained from humans vaccinated with one of the three smallpox vaccine types, to those obtained from people infected with mpox. We hypothesize that A35R and H3L human B cells can generate antibodies that bind only to the circulating strain and that smallpox vaccines cannot elicit anti-A35R mAbs able to neutralize the strain causing the current outbreak. The mpox mAbs we have uncovered through our research will contribute to identifying crucial epitopes specific to mpox and serve as a stepping stone toward proposing the design of mRNA constructs that exhibit these neutralizing epitopes.