title: Antigenic evolution of vaccine-derived polioviruses: changes in individual epitopes and relative stability of the overall immunological properties.
abstract: The Sabin oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) readily undergoes changes in antigenic sites upon replication in humans. Here, a set of antigenically altered descendants of the three OPV serotypes (76 isolates) was characterized to determine the driving forces behind these changes and their biological implications. The amino acid residues of OPV derivatives that lie within or close to the known antigenic sites exhibited a marked tendency to be replaced by residues characteristic of homotypic wild polioviruses, and these changes may occur very early in OPV evolution. The specific amino acid alterations nicely correlated with serotype-specific changes in the reactivity of certain individual antigenic sites, as revealed by the recently devised monoclonal antibody-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In comparison to the original vaccine, small changes, if any, in the neutralizing capacity of human or rabbit sera were observed in highly diverged vaccine polioviruses of three serotypes, in spite of strong alterations of certain epitopes. We propose that the common antigenic alterations in evolving OPV strains largely reflect attempts to eliminate fitness-decreasing mutations acquired either during the original selection of the vaccine or already present in the parental strains. Variability of individual epitopes does not appear to be primarily caused by, or lead to, a significant immune evasion, enhancing only slightly, if at all, the capacity of OPV derivatives to overcome immunity in human populations. This study reveals some important patterns of poliovirus evolution and has obvious implications for the rational design of live viral vaccines.
authors.affiliation: A. N. Belozersky Institute of Physical-Chemical Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow 119899, Russia.
authors.forename: Maria L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Yakovenko
authors.forename: Elena A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Cherkasova
authors.forename: Gennady V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Rezapkin
authors.forename: Olga E
authors.initials: OE
authors.lastname: Ivanova
authors.forename: Alexander P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Ivanov
authors.forename: Tatyana P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Eremeeva
authors.forename: Olga Y
authors.initials: OY
authors.lastname: Baykova
authors.forename: Konstantin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Chumakov
authors.forename: Vadim I
authors.initials: VI
authors.lastname: Agol
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood; D000956:Antigens, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D002460:Cell Line; D000939:Epitopes / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D009500:Neutralization Tests; D017955:Poliovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D011055:Poliovirus Vaccine, Oral; D011817:Rabbits; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012703:Serotyping
chemical_list: D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D000956:Antigens, Viral; D000939:Epitopes; D011055:Poliovirus Vaccine, Oral