Assessment of one-dose mumps-containing vaccine effectiveness on wild-type genotype F mumps viruses circulating in mainland China

To clarify the protective effect of one-dose mumps-containing vaccines (MuCV) in mainland China, the antigenic variations of HN gene and cross-neutralization capacities between MuCV and wild type genotype F MuVs were studied. In total, 70 HN gene sequences of genotype F MuV representative strains obtained from 2001 to 2015, two types of MuCV strains, 139 pairs of pre- and post-vaccination serum samples from infants receiving one dose of MuCV vaccination were analyzed. Genotype-specific amino acid variations were observed in the potential antigenic epitopes between MuCV and wild-type genotype F MuVs circulating in mainland China. The mumps neutralization antibody titers induced by one-dose MuCV were found to be generally low. Moreover, significant differences in neutralization titers were observed between vaccine and wild-type strains. It could be concluded that one-dose MuCV had a cross-protective effect against the wild-type genotype F MuVs, but its effectiveness was limited, which might be caused by insufficient doses of MuCV vaccination and the genotype-specific antigenic differences between vaccine and wild-type MuVs as well. In addition, a poor linear correlation between mumps-specific IgG concentrations and neutralization titers was observed in this study, indicating the concentration of MuV-specific IgG could not fully reflect the neutralizing antibody titer in serum. Therefore, it is highly recommended to provide a second dose of MuCV to preschool children to increase MuV neutralizing antibody titers and use MuV cross-neutralization test as preferred tool for assessment of mumps-containing vaccine effectiveness on wild-type MuVs. This is the first report to assess the effectiveness of one-dose Chinese MuCV against wild-type genotype F MuVs, which would be benefit for the development of mumps vaccination strategy.