Development of an Attenuated Vaccine for the Prevention of Lyme Disease
Abstract
Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) is the causative agent of Lyme disease, which is the leading vector-borne disease in North America and temperate regions across the northern hemisphere. Due to its rapid increase world-wide throughout the Northern hemisphere, there is great interest in developing preventative vaccines against Lyme disease. For many pathogenic microbes, the use of mutant strains that are attenuated for virulence have proved to be highly effective for generating protective immunity. This is because those strains can survive within a host long enough to express virulence proteins that are critical for host survival, but not long enough to cause clinical disease while eliciting B and T cell responses against virulence-relevant antigens. Recently, our group has identified a Bb mutant was cleared from the host without developing Lyme disease, but the infection was sufficiently long to elicit significant levels of Bb-specific Abs, a substantial number of which were against antigens that are only expressed within a vertebrate host. Importantly, immunization of mice with this attenuated strain was able to protect 100% of the mice challenged with 10x the ID50 from this Bb strain, meaning that it possesses all the properties to act as an attenuated vaccine. The experiments outlined in this project intend to test the abilities of this attenuated vaccine to elicit antibodies capable of protecting mice against challenge with Bb via tick or syringe inoculation up to 1 year post-immunization, thus preventing the development of Lyme disease. The results of this study could lead to the development of a greatly needed vaccine to protect against Lyme disease.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2022
- Accession Number
- AD1201931
Entities
People
- Ronald M. Wooten
Organizations
- University of Toledo