Development of an immunoinformatic-based multi-epitope vaccine against Group B streptococcus to tackle the global spread of antimicrobial resistance from tilapia aquaculture

Summary 

Vaccines can enhance sustainability in tilapia farming by reducing the environmental impact of disease outbreaks and the resultant antimicrobial use. Current practices of widespread antimicrobial use in aquaculture, particularly in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) have a negative consequence for water quality, ecosystem health, and the surrounding environment increasing the risk of AMR development and transmission. The use of vaccines could diminish these issues, but there's a lack of vaccines effective against multiple strains of pathogens.

This project proposes to develop and test a vaccine against conserved antigens in tilapia serotypes of Streptococcus agalactiae, a major pathogen in tilapia farming. Also known as Group B streptococcus (GBS) in humans, GBS has serious impacts on infants, and pregnant women, and can cause foodborne illness in adults. GBS's genetic diversity in tilapia makes the development of a conventional cross-protective vaccine challenging. Utilizing state-of-art immune-bioinformatics, the project will develop a chimeric vaccine with multiple pathogen signatures to stimulate B and T cells in fish.

Led by an LMICS scientist, in partnership with UK and Mexico scientists from academia and industry, this project forms a skilful interdisciplinary team that has expertise in immunoinformatic, vaccine development, efficacy testing, aquaculture, and aquatic veterinary sciences. This vaccine will protect tilapia from deadly GBS and humans from serious foodborne illnesses with serious long-term consequences. The cross-disciplinary platform that the project develops can be adopted to control diseases and AMR across a number of pathogens causing diseases in fish and other animals.