Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is the only vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) control. Although effective in preventing disseminated forms of TB in children, its efficacy in preventing pulmonary TB in adults is highly variable. BCG-Russia, one of the most widely used substrains to produce the vaccine, is a natural RecA mutant. Whether the presence of functional RecA affects the virulence and efficacy of BCG-Russia remain unknown. Here I show that a recombinant BCG-Russia expressing functional RecA, rBCG-RecA, is more attenuated than its parental counterpart in SCID mice and this difference is due to slower growth within the animals. I also demonstrate that rBCG-RecA confers equivalent protection against M. tb challenge as the parental strain in guinea pigs with similar bacterial burden in the organs. Taken together, the presence of RecA in BCG-Russia allows for a safer yet equally protective vaccine. This work provides new insight to future TB vaccine design.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Mark Ng
Language: English
Subfield: Infectious Diseases
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2570457079