Antigenic peptide-tobacco mosaic virus conjugates as a fungal vaccine candidate.

Fungal infections are becoming an increasingly serious challenge in clinic due to the increase in drug resistance and the lack of anti-fungal drugs. Vaccination is a useful approach to prevent fungal infections. However, the balance between effectiveness and side effects presents a challenge in vaccine development. In this work, we designed a plant virus-based conjugate vaccine. The non-infectiveness and innate immunogenicity of plant viruses make this vaccine both safe and effective. By conjugating a fungal antigenic peptide to the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), the resultant vaccine improved the uptake efficiency of antigenic peptides by antigen-presenting cells and enhanced the ability to target lymph nodes. The results of in vivo vaccination in mice showed a significant increase of antigen-specific IgG antibody levels induced by the TMV conjugate vaccine. This work suggests that TMV conjugate vaccines may become a potential vaccine candidate for preventing fungal infections.

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Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.