%0 Journal Article
%T Cross-reactivity of 4CMenB vaccine-induced antibodies against meningococci belonging to non-B serogroups in Italy.
%A Fazio C
%A Biolchi A
%A Neri A
%A Tomei S
%A Vacca P
%A Ambrosio L
%A Palmieri A
%A Mori E
%A La Gaetana R
%A Pizza M
%A Giuliani MM
%A Serino L
%A Stefanelli P
%J Hum Vaccin Immunother
%V 17
%N 7
%D 07 2021 3
%M 33522380
%F 4.526
%R 10.1080/21645515.2020.1855951
%X The four-component meningococcal serogroup B vaccine (4CMenB) contains antigens present in the majority of meningococci causing invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) and may potentially offer protection against strains belonging to non-B serogroups.This study aimed to evaluate the ability of 4CMenB-induced antibodies to kill, in a human serum bactericidal assay (hSBA), non-B meningococci belonging to the main genotypes responsible for IMD in Italy.Meningococci, collected between 2015 and 2017, was characterized for PorA, FetA and sequence type, and for clonal complex. Twenty non-B isolates, representative of the most frequent genotypes, were molecularly characterized for 4CMenB antigens and tested in hSBA with sera from 4CMenB-vaccinated infants and adolescents.Among twenty isolates, eleven were serogroup C, five were Y, two W and two X. All isolates contained genes encoding for fHbp and NHBA antigens and four harbored the NadA full-length encoding gene. Positive hSBA titers were obtained against all serogroup W, X and Y isolates and against five serogroup C isolates.These data show that the 4CMenB vaccine can induce bactericidal antibodies against genetically representative meningococcal W, Y and X strains from Italy. For serogroup C, different susceptibilities to killing were observed for strains with similar antigenic repertoires.