The use of silver nanoparticles to develop a Tacaribe virus vaccine in mice

Hemorrhagic fever viruses are those that cause fever and bleeding diathesis leading to death in many cases. Many of these viruses have been weaponized by the USA and former Soviet Union without any known vaccine available. Tacaribe is an arenavirus which is one of four families of virus that cause hemorrhagic fever. However, Tacaribe has not been known to cause illness in humans and is classified as BSL-2 even though it is highly similar to the hemorrhagic fever viruses Junin and Lassa. Silver nanoparticles manufactured as 10 nm spheres have been shown to inactivate many bacteria and viruses in vitro, including Tacaribe. The objective of this research was to explore using silver nanoparticles to attenuate live Tacaribe virus and test the effects of this treatment in mice in vivo. The attenuated virus would then be tested for use as a vaccine against the virus using a multi-dose vaccination.;The attenuation with silver nanoparticles did reduce the amount of innate immune response by the host. There was also a reduction in TCRV S segment expression compared to controls. However this inactivation was not enough to keep the virus from causing death in the majority of the mice tested indicating a humoral response was needed to successfully survive viral infection.;In the vaccination trials, all the mice survived that were given just the virus, without any attenuation, via intraperitoneal injections before challenge via intracranial injection. However, only half the mice survived that received the virus attenuated with the silver nanoparticles before challenge. This indicated that giving the mice an attenuated virus was actually worse than exposure to the pure strain in terms of humoral response generation.;Silver nanoparticles are assumed by many to be an overall effective antimicrobial drug counteracting many pathogens. However, here it was determined that there are some limitations to nanomedicine especially in regards to vaccine development.