Cross-protective vaccine against cutaneous HPV

Organ transplant recipients submitted to immunosuppression are hugely susceptible to devel-op massive, recurrent cutaneous warts due to infection by types of human papillomavirus typically colonizing the skin, i.e. cutaneous HPV types. Current papillomavirus vaccines do not protect against this subgroup of papillomavirus. The lesions then require repeated and costly treatments – which do not provide lasting cure – and often they progress to carcinomas in transplant recipients, although the carcinogenic role of cutaneous papillomaviruses has not been formally proved. Building on our recent success to develop and evaluate PANHPVAX, a related vaccine targeting mucosal HPV, in a Phase I trial, we have adopted the same cost-effective, thermostable and modular vaccine platform to generate vaccine against cutaneous papillomaviruses able.

Seeking a cost-efficient and broadly protective prophylactic vaccine against cHPV infection, we are currently assessing the effectiveness of HPV L2 polytopes fused to the bacterial Thioredoxin (Trx) scaffold protein as candidate vaccines in animal model. Of particular interest, the influence of a heptamerization domain (IMX313) in boosting both antibody and T-helper responses of the designed candidates is also under investigation.

Further information:

A Broadly Protective Vaccine against Cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses. (2022)
Filipe Mariz, Kathrin Balz, Manuela Dittrich, Yueru Zhang, Fan Yang, Xueer Zhao, Angelo Bolchi, Simone Ottonello, and Martin Müller. In press. A Broadly Protective Vaccine against Cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses. npj Vaccines, in press.