Neutralizing vaccination against viral interleukin-6 from a primate rhadinovirus

vIL-6-Fc vaccination against rhesus rhadinovirus (RRV) elicits high-titer neutralizing antibody responses after one or two doses, unlike unmodified vIL-6 which is a poor immunogen.

• Why it matters: Viral IL-6 (vIL-6) is a conserved immune-modulating cytokine in gammaherpesviruses, but its value as a protective vaccine antigen against rhadinovirus persistence and oncogenesis is under-explored.
• What they did: A new RRV strain encoding nearly identical vIL-6 was isolated, and immunogenicity was compared between unmodified vIL-6 and a vIL-6-Fc fusion protein after one or two vaccine doses.
• The result: vIL-6-Fc induces high-titer responses without detectable cytokine-related adverse effects or interference with a concomitant RRV glycoprotein B vaccine, supporting neutralizing vaccination targeting a conserved viral protein.

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