Potential use of IL-12 as an adjuvant in tuberculosis vaccines

MARIA PAULA MORELLI; JOAQUIN PELLEGRINI; GABRIELA CALAMANTE; MARIA PAULA DEL MEDICO ZAJAC; FLORENCIA CASTELLO; VERÓNICA GARCÍA; NICOLAS AMIANO; NANCY TATEOSIAN; MAGDALENA GHERARDI

Congreso; LXVII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología (SAI); 2019

Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología

In an in vitro Mtb latency model, Rv2626c was shown to be up-regulated during hypoxic conditions.Furthermore, studies in Mtb infected mice showed increased Rv2626c lung expression at theterminal stages of the infection (Bashir et al., 2010). On the other hand, Ag85A, an immunogenicprotein recognized by T cells, has been proposed as a potential candidate to boost host cellularimmunity primed by BCG. Additionally, it has been shown that MVA85A (attenuated modifiedvaccinia Ankara (MVA) vaccine vector expressing the mycobacterial antigen 85A) was safe but it did not improve BCG efficacy (Stylianou et al., 2015). We have previously demonstrated that Rv2626c Ag induced cellular and humoral responses in murine models (Morelli et al., 2018). It has been reportedthat different adjuvants stimulate the immune system in diverse ways. In particular, several adjuvantsare currently being used in TB vaccine development (Stewart et al., 2019). Interestingly, the use of IL-12 plasmid DNA as adjuvant during mice and macaques HIV vaccination was shown to increaseimmune responses (Jalah et al., 2012). Therefore, in order to develop a potential multistage vaccine,here we investigated the adjuvant role of IL-12 during immunization protocols employing MVA85A or Ag85A and Rv2626c.