Stabilized Full-Length Measles Fusion Protein Elicits Potent Immunity and Protection In Vivo
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Measles virus (MeV) is a highly contagious pathogen that causes significant morbidity and mortality in populations with low vaccination coverage. Infection typically leads to immune amnesia and, in rare cases, fatal neurological disease. While current live-attenuated vaccines are highly effective, they primarily elicit neutralizing antibodies against the hemagglutinin (H) glycoprotein, with a less robust response to the fusion (F) protein, a key protein for viral entry. To improve the immunogenicity of the F protein, we designed and characterized stabilized, prefusion MeV F protein antigens. We engineered both soluble ectodomains (F ECTO ) and full-length, membrane-embedded proteins (F FL ) with mutations that confer thermal stability. Cryo-electron microscopy confirmed that these engineered antigens faithfully maintain the native prefusion conformation. When evaluated in a cotton rat model, immunization with either F ECTO or F FL constructs induced neutralizing antibodies and elicited protection against viral challenge. The most stable full-length construct (F FL 3M) elicited a more potent neutralizing antibody response than its ectodomain counterpart. Importantly, no evidence of vaccine-enhanced respiratory disease was observed. These findings establish that a thermostable, full-length F protein is a superior immunogen to its soluble ectodomain. This work presents a promising candidate for next-generation, non-replicating measles vaccines intended to complement current vaccination strategies and provide a safe option for immunocompromised individuals and others who cannot receive live-virus vaccines. One-Sentence Summary A prefusion-stabilized, full-length measles Fusion glycoprotein immunogen induces strong neutralizing responses and offers protection against challenge with wild-type virus.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".