Abstract
As a consequence of its ordered pore architecture, mesoporous SBA-15 offers new possibilities for incorporating biological agents. Considering its applicability in oral vaccination, which shows more beneficial features when compared with parenteral vaccines, SBA-15 is also seen as a very promising adjuvant to carry, protect, and deliver entrapped antigens. Recent studies have shown several remarkable features in the immunization of hepatitis B, a viral disease transmitted mainly through blood or serum transfer. However, the surface antigen of the hepatitis B virus, HBsAg, is too large to fit inside the SBA-15 matrix with mean pore diameter around 10 nm, thus raising the question of how SBA-15 can protect the antigen. In this work, thermal analysis combined with neutron spectroscopy allowed us to shed light on the interactions between HBsAg and SBA-15 as well as on the role that these interactions play in the efficiency of this promising oral vaccination method. This information was obtained by verifying how the dynamic behaviour of the antigen is modified under confinement in SBA-15, thus also establishing an experimental method for verifying molecular dynamics simulations.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 2393-2399 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | European Physical Journal: Special Topics |
Volume | 227 |
Issue number | 17 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2019 |
Funding
We would like to thank Dr. Elisabeth C.N. Tenório and Denise Cristina Andre de Oliveira from the Hepatitis Laboratory of Butantan Institute for preparing the antigen used in this study. M.R.K., J.E.M.P., M.C.B. and H.N.B. neutron research has benefited from the support given by Danscatt funded by Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. J.E.M.P. research was supported through the Brazilian Science Without Borders (Process number 207740/2014-3) program. H.N.B. acknowledges support from the CoNext project. M.C.A.F. and O.A.S.A. are researchers of CNPq, Brazil. This research also used resources from the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and from the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The thermal analysis apparatus was financed through Carlsbergfond grants ref: 2013-01-0589 and CF14-0230.
Funders | Funder number |
---|---|
Brazilian Science Without Borders | 207740/2014-3 |
DOE Office of Science | |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory | 2013-01-0589, CF14-0230 |
Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education |