Enhanced anti-tuberculosis immunity by a TAT-Ag85B protein vaccine in a murine tuberculosis model

Abstract

Background: The development of more effective anti-tuberculosis vaccines would contribute to the control of the global problem of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). Recently, increasing evidences showed that HIV-Tat protein transduction domain is implicated in promotion of vaccines by inducing cellular immuno-response. However, it is rare known about the role of TAT in vaccines against MTB.

Methods: In this study, we expressed recombinant protein-fused Ag85B with TAT (TAT-Ag85B) which was used as a vaccine to inoculate mice infected with MTB.

Results: As s result, both IgG2a in serum and IFN-γ or TNFα produced by spleen cells were all increased significantly in the mice inoculated by TAT-Ag85B. Furthermore, consistently, TAT-Ag85B inoculation significantly reduced MTB loads both in lung and spleen.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that a novel protein vaccine of TAT-Ag85B enhances immune response both in humoral and cellular immunity, and contributes to protective efficacy against MTB.

Keywords:

• TAT
• Protein transduction domain
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• Ag85B
• Protective immunity

Acknowledgements

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, [grant number 81571528], [grant number 81202294], [grant number 81172778], [grant number 81302524], [grant number 61170172]; Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number KJ2013A105].

Conflict of Interest

There is no conflict of interest in this study.