The current status, challenges, and future developments of new tuberculosis vaccines

ABSTRACT

Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex causes tuberculosis (TB), one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide. TB results in more fatalities than multi-drug resistant (MDR) HIV strain related coinfection. Vaccines play a key role in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Unfortunately, the only licensed preventive vaccine against TB, bacilli Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ineffective for prevention of pulmonary TB in adults. Therefore, it is very important to develop novel vaccines for TB prevention and control. This literature review provides an overview of the innate and adaptive immune response during M. tuberculosis infection, and presents current developments and challenges to novel TB vaccines. A comprehensive understanding of vaccines in preclinical and clinical studies provides extensive insight for the development of safer and more efficient vaccines, and may inspire new ideas for TB prevention and treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• BCG
• Clinical trials
• Immunology
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• Tuberculosis
• Vaccines

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors do not have commercial or other associations that might pose a conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the grants from the Serious Infectious Diseases Special Foundation of China (2012ZX10003008002), WHO IVR Steering Committee (V25-181-202), National Nature and Science Foundation of China (30070730), the Medical Science and Technology Youth Cultivation Program of PLA (16QNP075), Outstanding Talent Training Project of Beijing (2016000057592G265), and Key Subject Foundation of the 309th Hospital of Chinese PLA (2016-ZD-001).