The Long Road to an Effective Vaccine for Meningococcus Group B (MenB)
Open Access
- 1 February 2013
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Annals of Medicine & Surgery
- Vol. 2 (2), 53-56
- https://doi.org/10.1016/s2049-0801(13)70037-2
Abstract
Neisseria meningitidis infection can cause life-threatening meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia. Over the past 40 years, vaccines against most of the main meningococcal serogroups have offered increasingly good protection from disease, with one major exception in the developed world: serogroup B meningococcus (MenB). In the United States, MenB accounts for about a quarter of cases of meningococcal meningitis, with the bulk of the rest caused by meningococcus serogroups C (MenC) and Y (MenY). In the UK, where a vaccine against MenC is widely used, MenB is now responsible for nearly 90% of cases of invasive meningococcal disease. Recent attempts to create a universal MenB vaccine have been thwarted by the variability of the surface proteins of MenB and by the similarity of the MenB capsule to human glycoproteins. This review discusses current meningococcal vaccine strategies and their limitations with regard to MenB, and examines a promising new strategy for the rational design of a MenB vaccine. Thanks to a fusion of a rational reverse genetics approach and a membrane vesicle approach, a MenB vaccine, 4CMenB (Bexsero®), has finally gained regulatory approval in Europe and could be in clinical use by the end of 2013.Keywords
This publication has 65 references indexed in Scilit:
- Capsular polysaccharide vaccine for Group BNeisseria meningitidis,Escherichia coliK1, andPasteurella haemolyticaA2Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011
- Changes in Serogroup and Genotype Prevalence Among Carried Meningococci in the United Kingdom During Vaccine ImplementationThe Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2011
- Comparative Long-term Adverse Effects Elicited by Invasive Group B and C Meningococcal InfectionsClinical Infectious Diseases, 2011
- Characterization of fHbp , nhba ( gna2132 ), nadA , porA , and Sequence Type in Group B Meningococcal Case Isolates Collected in England and Wales during January 2008 and Potential Coverage of an Investigational Group B Meningococcal VaccineClinical and Vaccine Immunology, 2010
- Neisseria meningitidis GNA2132, a heparin-binding protein that induces protective immunity in humansProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010
- Global epidemiology of meningococcal diseaseVaccine, 2009
- Meningococcal Factor H–Binding Protein Variants Expressed by Epidemic Capsular Group A, W‐135, and X Strains from AfricaThe Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2009
- Impact of Meningococcal Serogroup C Conjugate Vaccines on Carriage and Herd ImmunityThe Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2008
- Prevalence of Factor H–Binding Protein Variants and NadA among Meningococcal Group B Isolates from the United States: Implications for the Development of a Multicomponent Group B VaccineThe Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2007
- A universal vaccine for serogroup B meningococcusProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006