Engineering a Virus-Like Particle as an Antigenic Platform for a Pfs47-Targeted Malaria Transmission-Blocking Vaccine

We recently characterized Pfs47, a protein expressed on the surface of sexual stages and ookinetes of Plasmodium falciparum, as a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine (TBV) target. Mice immunization induced antibodies that conferred strong transmission-reducing activity (TRA) at a concentration of 200 μg/mL. Here, we sought to optimize the Pfs47 vaccine to elicit higher titers of high-affinity antibodies, capable of inducing strong TRA at a lower concentration. We report the development and evaluation of a Pfs47-based virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine generated by conjugating our 58 amino acid Pfs47 antigen to Acinetobacter phage AP205-VLP using the SpyCatcher:SpyTag adaptor system. AP205-Pfs47 complexes (VLP-P47) formed particles of ~22 nm diameter that reacted with polyclonal anti-Pfs47 antibodies, indicating that the antigen was accessible on the surface of the particle. Mice immunized with VLP-P47 followed by a boost with Pfs47 monomer induced significantly higher antibody titers, with higher binding affinity to Pfs47, than mice that received two immunizations with either VLP-P47 (VLP-P47/VLP-P47) or the Pfs47 monomer (P47/P47). Purified IgG from VLP-P47/P47 mice had strong TRA (83–98%) at concentrations as low as 5 μg/mL. These results indicate that conjugating the Pfs47 antigen to AP205-VLP significantly enhanced antigenicity and confirm the potential of Pfs47 as a TBV candidate.