The TLR7/8 agonist INI-4001 enhances the immunogenicity of a Powassan virus-like-particle vaccine

Powassan virus (POWV) is a pathogenic tick-borne flavivirus that causes fatal neuroinvasive disease in humans. There are currently no approved therapies or vaccines for POWV infection. Here, we develop a POW virus-like particle (POW-VLP) based vaccine adjuvanted with the novel synthetic Toll-like receptor 7/8 agonist INI-4001. We demonstrate that INI-4001 outperforms both alum and the Toll-like receptor 4 agonist INI-2002 in enhancing the immunogenicity of a dose-sparing POW-VLP vaccine in mice. INI-4001 increases the magnitude and breadth of the antibody response as measured by whole-virus ELISA, induces neutralizing antibodies measured by FRNT, reduces viral burden in the brain of infected mice measured by RT-qPCR, and confers 100% protection from lethal challenge with both lineages of POWV. We show that the antibody response induced by INI-4001 is more durable than standard alum, and 80% of mice remain protected from lethal challenge 9-months post-vaccination. Lastly, we show that the protection elicited by INI-4001 adjuvanted POW-VLP vaccine is unaffected by either CD4⁺ or CD8⁺ T cell depletion and can be passively transferred to unvaccinated mice indicating that protection is mediated through humoral immunity. This study highlights the utility of novel synthetic adjuvants in VLP-based vaccines.