Feasibility of the use of ELISA in an immunogenicity-based potency test of anthrax vaccines

Complexities of lethal challenge animal models have prompted the investigation of immunogenicity assays as potency tests of anthrax vaccines. An ELISA was used to measure the antibody response to protective antigen (PA) in mice immunized once with a commercially available (AVA) or a recombinant PA vaccine (rPAV) formulated in-house with aluminum hydroxide. Results from the anti-PA ELISA were used to select a single dose appropriate for the development of a potency test. Immunization with 0.2 mL of AVA induced a measurable response in the majority of animals. This dose was located in the linear range of the vaccine dose-antibody response curve. In the case of rPAV, practical limitations prevented the finding of the best single dose for the potency testing of purified vaccines. In additional immunogenicity experiments neither the magnitude of the response to a single dose of vaccine, nor the estimation of the dose necessary to induce a measurable response were able to consistently detect brief exposure of vaccines to potentially damaging temperatures. However, differences detected for rPAV in the proportion of mice responding to the same dose of treated and untreated vaccine suggested that further assay development to increase the sensitivity of the latter design may be warranted.