Protein vaccines articles from across Nature Portfolio

A targeted design to stabilize the respiratory syncytial virus prefusion F trimer enables the generation of a foldon-free immunogen that elicits similar humoral responses to approved vaccines.

RSV and hMPV infections pose significant health risks in vulnerable populations. Here, the authors used a systematic approach to identify mutations critical for fusion protein metastability and rationally design uncleaved prefusion-closed trimers for RSV and hMPV F proteins that induce robust antibody responses in vivo.

In this proof-of-concept study, we present a next-generation poxvirus vaccine that features a ‘two-in-one’ immunogen. Our protein vaccine construct, DAM, combines the monkeypox virus antigens A35 and M1, and was produced on the basis of structure-guided design. The DAM subunit vaccine elicited superior antiviral immunity with safety compared to cocktail vaccines or a live vaccinia virus vaccine.

It took roughly 1 year for a COVID-19 vaccine to become available, yet, four decades after the first patient with HIV was described, we do not yet have a vaccine for HIV. Here, Barton Haynes examines the biological reasons why vaccine development for HIV is so exceptionally challenging.