# IDENTIFY NOVEL NEUTRALIZATION-SENSITIVE EPITOPES OF COXIELLA BURNETII

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SAN ANTONIO · 2020 · $224,750

## Abstract

Abstract
Q fever is a worldwide zoonotic disease that is caused by the obligate intracellular Gram-negative bacterium,
Coxiella burnetii. Human Q fever can develop into a severe chronic, potentially fatal disease. Although this
organism previously weaponized and currently classified as a category B select agent, no vaccine is
commercially available for the prevention of human Q fever in the US. Thus, the creation of a safe and
effective vaccine for preventing Q fever remains an important goal for public health and national biosecurity. To
achieve this goal, this revised R21 application aims to explore the feasibility of designing a multivalent mimetic
peptide Q fever vaccine targeting novel neutralization-sensitive epitopes of C. burnetii T cell-independent
antigens. Despite C. burnetii being an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen, our recent work demonstrated
that formalin-inactivated Nine Mile phase I whole cell vaccine (PIV)-induced protection is B-cell dependent,
requiring IgM and IgG, and that PIV-specific T cell-independent IgM plays a critical role. Thus, antigens that
activate B cells to produce PIV-specific IgM are expected to be promising vaccine candidates. Interestingly, our
previous studies demonstrated that a peptide mimic of a C. burnetii phase I lipopolysaccharides protective
epitope (m1E41920) conjugated to keyhole limpet haemocyanin (m1E41920-KLH) conferred significant
protection against C. burnetii infection. This finding supports the utility of m1E41920 as a vaccine candidate to
prevent human Q fever. However, m1E41920-KLH did not confer the same level of protection as the PIV.
Thus, the overall objective of this application is to define a multivalent mimotope Q fever vaccine that confers
the equal level of protection as the PIV. To achieve this objective, we propose one specific aim to test the
central hypothesis that a humoral response to multiple neutralization-sensitive epitopes of C. burnetii T cell-
independent antigens can confer the same level of protection as the PIV. We will identify additional protective
mimetic peptides of T cell-independent antigens to enhance the protection conferred by this monovalent
m1E41920-based vaccine. Upon the completion of this project, we expect to define the first multivalent
mimotope Q fever vaccine that targets novel neutralization-sensitive epitopes of T cell-independent antigens.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9929543
- **Project number:** 5R21AI141945-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SAN ANTONIO
- **Principal Investigator:** Guoquan Zhang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $224,750
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-15 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9929543

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9929543, IDENTIFY NOVEL NEUTRALIZATION-SENSITIVE EPITOPES OF COXIELLA BURNETII (5R21AI141945-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9929543. Licensed CC0.

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