A Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific subunit vaccine that provides synergistic immunity upon co-administration with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Joshua S. Woodworth
  • Helena Strand Clemmensen
  • Hannah Battey
  • Karin Dijkman
  • Thomas Lindenstrøm
  • Raquel Salvador Laureano
  • Randy Taplitz
  • Jeffrey Morgan
  • Claus Aagaard
  • Ida Rosenkrands
  • Cecilia S. Lindestam Arlehamn
  • Andersen, Peter
  • Rasmus Mortensen

Given the encouraging clinical results of both candidate subunit vaccines and revaccination with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) against tuberculosis (TB), there is support for combining BCG and subunit vaccination for increased efficacy. BCG and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) share ~98% of their genome and current subunit vaccines are almost exclusively designed as BCG boosters. The goal of this study is to design a TB subunit vaccine composed of antigens not shared with BCG and explore the advantages of this design in a BCG + subunit co-administration vaccine strategy. Eight protective antigens are selected to create an Mtb-specific subunit vaccine, named H107. Whereas traditional vaccines containing BCG-shared antigens exhibit in vivo cross-reactivity to BCG, H107 shows no cross-reactivity and does not inhibit BCG colonization. Instead, co-administering H107 with BCG leads to increased adaptive responses against both H107 and BCG. Importantly, rather than expanding BCG-primed T cells, H107 broadens the overall vaccine repertoire with new T cell clones and introduces ‘adjuvant-imprinted’ qualities including Th17 responses and less-differentiated Th1 cells. Collectively, these features of H107 are associated with a substantial increase in long-term protection.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6658
JournalNature Communications
Volume12
Number of pages13
ISSN2041-1723
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

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