Effect of sequence variation in meningococcal PorA outer membrane protein on the effectiveness of a hexavalent PorA outer membrane vesicle vaccine in toddlers and school children

Though meningococcal conjugate vaccines are effective against serogroup C, there is currently no vaccine solution for serogroup B disease. PorA outer membrane protein (OMP) is a potential serogroup B vaccine candidate. A hexavalent PorA outer membrane vesicle (OMV) vaccine has been evaluated in phase I and II trials with promising results. However, considerable sequence variation occurs in the variable regions (VRs) encoding these serosubtypes. By using five wild type P1.19,15 variant strains we examined the serum bactericidal antibody (SBA) titres from sera collected from toddlers and school children pre- and post-vaccination. The numbers of subjects with SBA titres of <4, 4 and ≥8 varied greatly between the different strains. This was also reflected when ≥4-fold rises in SBA titres were examined. This finding in sera from toddlers and school children may have implications for PorA based vaccines.