Padma Srikanth

Publications (2)9.39 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: Muruganandam Nagarajan

  Article: A DNA vaccine against chikungunya virus is protective in mice and induces neutralizing antibodies in mice and nonhuman primates.

  Karthik Mallilankaraman, Devon J Shedlock, Huihui Bao, Omkar U Kawalekar, Paolo Fagone, Aarthi A Ramanathan, Bernadette Ferraro, Jennifer Stabenow, Paluru Vijayachari, Senthil G Sundaram, Nagarajan Muruganandam, Gopalsamy Sarangan, Padma Srikanth, Amir S Khan, Mark G Lewis, J Joseph Kim, Niranjan Y Sardesai, Karuppiah Muthumani, David B Weiner
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  ABSTRACT: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an emerging mosquito-borne alphavirus indigenous to tropical Africa and Asia. Acute illness is characterized by fever, arthralgias, conjunctivitis, rash, and sometimes arthritis. Relatively little is known about the antigenic targets for immunity, and no licensed vaccines or therapeutics are currently available for the pathogen. While the Aedes aegypti mosquito is its primary vector, recent evidence suggests that other carriers can transmit CHIKV thus raising concerns about its spread outside of natural endemic areas to new countries including the U.S. and Europe. Considering the potential for pandemic spread, understanding the development of immunity is paramount to the development of effective counter measures against CHIKV. In this study, we isolated a new CHIKV virus from an acutely infected human patient and developed a defined viral challenge stock in mice that allowed us to study viral pathogenesis and develop a viral neutralization assay. We then constructed a synthetic DNA vaccine delivered by in vivo electroporation (EP) that expresses a component of the CHIKV envelope glycoprotein and used this model to evaluate its efficacy. Vaccination induced robust antigen-specific cellular and humoral immune responses, which individually were capable of providing protection against CHIKV challenge in mice. Furthermore, vaccine studies in rhesus macaques demonstrated induction of nAb responses, which mimicked those induced in convalescent human patient sera. These data suggest a protective role for nAb against CHIKV disease and support further study of envelope-based CHIKV DNA vaccines.
  PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 01/2011; 5(1):e928. · 4.69 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: PubMed Central

  Article: Chikungunya: a potentially emerging epidemic?

  Michelle M Thiboutot, Senthil Kannan, Omkar U Kawalekar, Devon J Shedlock, Amir S Khan, Gopalsamy Sarangan, Padma Srikanth, David B Weiner, Karuppiah Muthumani
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  ABSTRACT: Chikungunya virus is a mosquito-borne emerging pathogen that has a major health impact in humans and causes fever disease, headache, rash, nausea, vomiting, myalgia, and arthralgia. Indigenous to tropical Africa, recent large outbreaks have been reported in parts of South East Asia and several of its neighboring islands in 2005-07 and in Europe in 2007. Furthermore, positive cases have been confirmed in the United States in travelers returning from known outbreak areas. Currently, there is no vaccine or antiviral treatment. With the threat of an emerging global pandemic, the peculiar problems associated with the more immediate and seasonal epidemics warrant the development of an effective vaccine. In this review, we summarize the evidence supporting these concepts.
  PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 01/2010; 4(4):e623. · 4.69 Impact Factor