TABLE 4.
Efficacy of V3-L2-V5 fusion vaccine candidate in comparison to full-length OspA against B. burgdorferi OspA ST1 subcutaneous challenge and B. afzelii OspA ST2 tick challengea
| Immunogen | Dose (μg) | No. infected/total in: |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Subcutaneous challenge with B. burgdorferi (ST1) | Tick challenge with B. afzelii (ST2) | ||
| FL-OspA ST1 | 1.0 | 6/10d | |
| FL-OspA ST2 | 1.0 | 0/18c | |
| V3-L2-V5 | 3.0 | 0/10c | 0/9c |
| V3-L2-V5 | 0.3 | 0/10c | 0/9c |
| V3-L2-V5 | 0.03 | 0/10c | 0/9c |
| V3-L2-V5 | 0.003 | 2/10b | 6/9d |
| Placebo | 8/10 | 15/16 | |
a
Mice were either challenged with ticks infected with B. afzelii (OspA ST2; strain IS1) or subcutaneously injected with in vitro-grown spirochetes of B. burgdorferi (OspA ST1; strain ZS7). For B. afzelii, only mice with at least one tick feeding for >48 h were included in the readout. Statistical significance was calculated with Fisher’s exact test (two-tailed).
b
P < 0.05.
c
P < 0.001.
d
Not significant.