Novel approaches to tuberculosis prevention: DNA vaccines

Abstract

It is estimated that there are approximately eight million new cases of active tuberculosis (TB) worldwide annually. There is only 1 vaccine available for prevention: bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG). This has variable efficacy and is only protective for certain extrapulmonary TB cases in children, therefore new strategies for the creation of novel vaccines have emerged. One of the promising approaches is the DNA vaccine, used as a direct vaccination or as a prime-boost vaccine. This review describes the experimental data obtained during the design of DNA vaccines for TB.

Keywords::

• DNA vaccine
• tuberculosis
• adjuvant

Acknowledgements

We thank Cesar Rivas Santiago from Rutgers University for critical review and Daniel Cervantes- Villagrana for helping with the design of the figures.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.