Development of Non-toxic Recombinant Ricin Vaccine and Evaluation of Vaccine Efficacy

Abstract

Ricin is a highly toxic protein which is produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant. Ricin toxin A chain has ribosomal RNA N-glycosylase activity that irreversibly hydrolyses the N-glycosidic bond of the adenine residue at position 4324 within the 28S rRNA. In this study, we developed non-toxic recombinant ricin vaccine(R51) in <i>E. coli</i> expression system, and evaluated efficacy of the R51 according to adjuvants. When the R51 was administered using aluminum hydroxide as an adjuvant, the vaccine efficacy was higher than that of TLR agonists or aluminum phosphate. Because it is time-consuming to administer the vaccine three times at three-week intervals, we investigated the survival rate and antibody titer of mice according to the change of time interval of vaccination. Interestingly, there was no difference in survival rate and antibody titer when R51 was administered at 0, 1, and 3 weeks or 0, 2, and 4 weeks compared to when administered at 0, 3, and 6 weeks. Therefore, the developed R51 vaccine is promising to protect soldiers from Ricin attack.