Confronting the barriers to develop novel vaccines against brucellosis

Abstract

Brucellosis is an important zoonotic disease of nearly worldwide distribution. This pathogen causes abortion in domestic animals and undulant fever, arthritis, endocarditis and meningitis in humans. Currently, there is no vaccine licensed for brucellosis in humans. Furthermore, control of brucellosis in the human population relies on the control of animal disease. Available animal vaccines may cause disease and in some cases have limited efficacy. This article discusses recent studies in the development of recombinant protein, DNA and live-attenuated vaccines against brucellosis. Furthermore, we call the attention of the scientific community, government and industry professionals to the fact that for these novel vaccine initiatives to become licensed products they need to be effective in natural hosts and bypass the regulatory barriers present in several countries.

Keywords::

• Brucella abortus
• brucellosis
• DNA vaccine
• live-attenuated vaccine
• recombinant protein vaccine
• vaccine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by grants from CNPq, FAPEMIG, CAPES (PNPD), INCT-Vacinas, CNPq/FAPEMIG (REPENSA), CNPq/MAPA (578065/2008-8), CNPq/CONICET and CNPq/ANPCyt (490528/2008-2) to Sérgio Costa Oliveira and grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Grand Challenges Explorations Initiative; and grants from the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT-Argentina) PICT 2006 No. 1670, ANPCyT/CNPq PICT 2008 No. 18, PICT 206 No. 1335 and 20020090100083 from the Universidad de Buenos Aires to Juliana Cassataro and Guillermo Hernán Giambartolomei. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.