ИСТИНА

Adjuvants enhance the immunostimulating properties of vaccines antigens. Aluminium salts remains the most widely used adjuvants. However, these adjuvants induce good humoral response (Th2), but not cellular (Th1). Moreover there is data that aluminum is neurotoxic and could cause local and systemic side-effects. Therefore, the development of more powerful and non-toxic adjuvants is of paramount importance. Viruses and virus-like particles (VLPs) induce effective immune response due to the highly organized structure and size optimal for internalization by antigen presenting cells. Plants viruses and their VLPs are the very promising adjuvants to enhance immune responses against co-administered vaccines because they are highly stable, absolutely biologically safe (plants and animals have no common pathogens) and low cost. We examined adjuvant properties of plant filamentous helical viruses and their VLPs (genus Potexvirus family Alphaflexiviridae: Alternanthera mosaic virus, Potato virus X) and structural modified spherical particles generated by thermal treatment of rod-like Tobacco mosaic virus (genus Tobamovirus, family Virgaviridae). The immune response to the model antigens in the presence of virions, VLPs or spherical particles increased significantly. We showed that Potato virus X and spherical particles could trigger balanced Th1/Th2 antibody response against model antigen.