Human and bovine rotavirus strain antigens for evaluation of immunogenicity in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of a single dose live attenuated tetravalent, bovine-human-reassortant, oral rotavirus vaccine in Indian adults

A single dose of live attenuated tetravalent (G1-G4) bovine human reassortant rotavirus vaccine (BRV-TV) was administered to healthy Indian adult volunteers, who were assessed for safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine with 3:1 randomization to vaccine or placebo. All 20 adult male volunteers in the study had rotavirus specific serum IgA at baseline. There were no side effects or adverse events reported. Administration of BRV-TV was not associated with fever, diarrhea, or altered liver transaminases. Rotavirus IgA seroconversion post single dose administration was 27%. This study shows that BRV-TV is non-reactogenic, safe and immunogenic in adults. The IgA units estimated for the same sample using human G1P[8] rotavirus strain as the antigen were consistently higher than with the bovine G6P[5] WC3 strain and the human G2P[4] DS-1 strain antigen. The use of different human and bovine rotavirus strains as antigens in a quantitative rotavirus specific serum IgA assay resulted in different estimations of IgA antibody in the same sample.