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. 2025 Apr 2:51:126893.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.126893. Epub 2025 Feb 20.

Improving the immunogenicity of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine using a synthetic carbohydrate fatty acid monosulphate squalane-in-water adjuvant

Lucille F van Beek  1 , Christa van der Gaast-de Jongh  2 , Peter Paul Platenburg  3 , Luuk Hilgers  3 , Marien I de Jonge  2
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Free article

Improving the immunogenicity of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine using a synthetic carbohydrate fatty acid monosulphate squalane-in-water adjuvant

Lucille F van Beek et al. Vaccine. .
Free article

Abstract

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) have been highly effective in preventing invasive pneumococcal disease. However, increasing serotype coverage of PCVs led to decreasing antibody responses against individual serotypes, possibly leading to vaccine failure. It is therefore important to improve the immunogenicity of PCVs. A novel, synthetic carbohydrate fatty acid monosulphate-based adjuvant in squalane-based oil-in-water (CMS:O/W), has proven to be safe and potent for protein-based vaccines. Here, we demonstrated that administration of CMS:O/W-supplemented PCV-13 in rabbits is safe. Primary vaccination with two different PCV-doses showed that adding CMS:O/W improved the response rate against vaccine-serotypes to 100 % (6/6 animals) and increased the antibody levels against 6/13 serotypes with a full and 7/13 serotypes with a fractional (1/5th) human dose. After booster vaccination, CMS:O/W increased the antibody levels against 2/13 serotypes. Collectively, CMS:O/W represents a promising adjuvant to enhance PCV immunogenicity, potentially mitigating the risk of decreasing antibody responses associated with increased PCV valency.

Keywords: Adjuvant; Antibody response; CMS; CMS:O/W; Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; Streptococcus pneumoniae.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Luuk Hilgers reports a relationship with LiteVax BV that includes: board membership, equity or stocks, and funding grants. Peter Paul Platenburg reports a relationship with LiteVax BV that includes: board membership, equity or stocks, and funding grants. Luuk Hilgers has patent #WO-2016/013938 licensed to LiteVax BV. Peter Paul Platenburg has patent #WO-2016/013938 licensed to LiteVax BV. Co-authors hold shares in LiteVax BV - Luuk Hilgers and Peter Paul Platenburg. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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