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Abstract
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a single-stranded, negative sense RNA virus in the Paramyxovirus family that can cause serious lower respiratory tract disease in infants, young children, and the elderly. Currently no safe and effective RSV vaccine exists due to the difficulties in balancing vaccine efficacy and safety. Previous studies have shown that RSV can modify the host immune response via RSV G protein CX3C chemokine mimicry, adversely affecting pulmonary leukocyte chemotaxis, CX3CR1+ RSV-specific T cell responses, and cytokine and chemokine expression. Accordingly, we investigated whether vaccination of mice with RSV G protein-derived polypeptides can induce neutralizing and/or blocking antibodies capable of inhibiting G protein-CX3CR1 interaction for both A and B strains of RSV. Our results examining G polypeptide and G nanoparticle vaccination of mice show that these RSV G polypeptide subunit vaccines generate heterosubtypic neutralizing antibodies that block the immune modulatory activities of RSV A2 and B1 G protein and G protein interaction with CX3CR1.