Individual and bivalent vaccines based on alphavirus replicons protect guinea pigs against infection with Lassa and Ebola viruses

Lassa and Ebola viruses cause acute, often fatal, hemorrhagic fever diseases, for which no effective vaccines are currently available. Although lethal human disease outbreaks have been confined so far to sub-Saharan Africa, they also pose significant epidemiological concern worldwide as demonstrated by several instances of accidental importation of the viruses into North America and Europe. In the present study, we developed experimental individual vaccines for Lassa virus and bivalent vaccines for Lassa and Ebola viruses that are based on an RNA replicon vector derived from an attenuated strain of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. The Lassa and Ebola virus genes were expressed from recombinant replicon RNAs that also encoded the replicase function and were capable of efficient intracellular self-amplification. For vaccinations, the recombinant replicons were incorporated into virus-like replicon particles. Guinea pigs vaccinated with particles expressing Lassa virus nucleoprotein or glycoprotein genes were protected from lethal challenge with Lassa virus. Vaccination with particles expressing Ebola virus glycoprotein gene also protected the animals from lethal challenge with Ebola virus. In order to evaluate a single vaccine protecting against both Lassa and Ebola viruses, we developed dual-expression particles that expressed glycoprotein genes of both Ebola and Lassa viruses. Vaccination of guinea pigs with either dual-expression particles or with a mixture of particles expressing Ebola and Lassa virus glycoprotein genes protected the animals against challenges with Ebola and Lassa viruses. The results showed that immune responses can be induced against multiple vaccine antigens coexpressed from an alphavirus replicon and suggested the possibility of engineering multivalent vaccines based upon alphavirus vectors for arenaviruses, filoviruses, and possibly other emerging pathogens.