Conjugation of H1N1 Influenza peptides with PEG coated gold nanoparticles to enhance the immune response

Abstract

H1N1 influenza is the most frequent subtype of influenza infection in people responsible for critical mortality around the world. The adequacy of antiviral medicines in treating influenza appears to be questionable due to the rise of medication safe strains. The vaccines available for the influenza virus are strain specific and require intermittent reformulation to incorporate combination of flowing flu A and B virus strains. The problem related with these vaccines is their timely and sufficient availability, if there should arise an occurrence of an unexpected outbreak. In this manner, there is an urgent requirement to develop a vaccine which can provide major protection against influenza virus worldwide. In the present study, one reported peptide (GSFVQLPELTGL) containing multiple epitopes was selected for conjugation with nanoparticles to enhance the immune response. The immunogenic response was evaluated by repetitive stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with the peptide, peptide conjugated with gold nanoparticles coated with different concentrations (3.6, 8.4, 16.8, 25.2μg/mL) of poly ethylene glycol (PEG) and measure their proliferation by MTT. The 8.4μg/mL conc. of PEG coated gold nanoparticles conjugated with peptide shows the best results corresponding to other concentrations. Conservation analysis revealed that the peptide was conserved 98.4% and 95.7% in H1N1 and H5N1 respectively. Thus it is suggested that the PEG coated gold nanoparticles which are conjugated with peptides enhance immune response and can be considered in formulation of vaccine development.