Butantan researchers study new pneumonia vaccine

Agência FAPESP – Researchers from the Butantan Institute are working on the development of a new vaccine against pneumonia . The vaccine will be inhaled, dispensing from using needles, and should be cheaper, more effective and more convenient than is currently available. According to the Institute, the research has three years to complete and only after that can be tested in humans. Pneumonia affects an average of 450 million people a year and is registered in every country in the world.

The project is supported by FAPESP and the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom.

To produce the vaccine, researchers will have to choose one of the proteins that are part of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, the leading cause of pneumonia in the world and also known as pneumococcus.

The protein will go through a process of isolation and purification. It will then be combined with nanoparticles, which will act as packets to transport it and into the body by inhalation, reaching the lungs with precision and stimulating the production of antibodies against bacteria.

According to the researchers, one of the project's challenges is to badyze which protein is the most appropriate for the vaccine. The researchers worked with PspA (Pneumococcal Surface Protein A), which has an immune response that is considered optimal but has different families and would require the combination of two different proteins. Pneumolysin is another protein that is also the target of research.

Two Butantan laboratories are involved in the project. The vaccine development laboratory is responsible for studies on proteins, which are produced in large quantities.

Researcher Viviane Maimoni Gonçalves explains that Streptococcus pneumoniae is difficult to cultivate in the laboratory, the gene that encodes the protein. is introduced into another bacterium, Escherichia coli, so that production can be performed.

The bacteriology laboratory is responsible for conducting tests with mice at this stage of the research.

"The new vaccine is expected to be more effective than is available today, as it could provide greater immunization.Available today, all pneumococcal vaccines available worldwide are composed of polysaccharides (which are on the surface of bacteria.) The problem is that the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae has a huge variation that current vaccines can not cover, "said researcher Eliane Namie Miyaji to Butantan's communications advisor.

Streptococcus pneumoniae has 97 different serotypes and existing vaccines protect against up to 13 serotypes. According to the researchers, the production of existing vaccines involves chemically conjugating the protein to the different polysaccharides, a complex and quite expensive process.

The new vaccine can be used in powder form, which facilitates the logistics of vaccination campaigns.