Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is an infectious disease caused by CoxsakievirusA16 (CVA16) or Enterovirus 71 (EV71). Among these, In the case of infection caused by EV71, serious complication of the heart and nervous system may occur. However, a vaccine or drug that can prevent this HFMD is not yet available. So, in this paper, we studied a peptide amphiphile (PA) vaccine that prevents HFMD by EV71 infection. PA is conjugated peptides with fatty acids, which self-assembled into micelle structures. Epitope peptide sequence was selected from EV71 virus particle 3 (VP3) and conjugated with spacer-linker and fatty acids. The PA structure was imaged using atomic force microscope and transmission electron microscope. In order to evaluate immune responses, our VP3PA vaccine, VP3-peptide, PBS (control) were injected intraperitoneal injection (i.p) into balb/c mice with adjuvant. VP3-specific IgG, IgG1 and IgG2a in collected serum from immunized mice was assayed by ELISA and Western blot for humoral immunity. VP3PA that we designed might overcome the limitation of peptide vaccine to prevent HFMD caused by EV71 through various experimental results.
