A BRUCELLA PROTEASE INHIBITOR IS A USEFULL ADJUVANT IN ORAL VACCINE FORMULATIONS

GABRIELA RISSO; ANDRÉS E. IBAÑEZ; LORENA M. CORIA; KARINA A. PASQUEVICH; MARIA VICTORIA DELPINO; GABRIEL BIONES; JULIANA CASSATARO

Campos do Jordao

Congreso; XXXVII CONGRESS OF THE BRAZILIAN SOCIETY OF IMMUNOLOGY; 2012

Sociedad Brasilera de Inmunologia

Previous results showed that a Brucella protein (BP) administered by the oral route and without adjuvants induced protection against oral Brucella challenge. These results indicated that BP had self-adjuvant properties and prompted us to study its potential application as adjuvant for other antigens (Ags). Methods and Results: Our results indicated that BP is a broad spectrum protease inhibitor with a stronger activity against serine proteases secreted by the pancreas to the intestine (elastase, trypsine and alpha chymotrypsin. As BP is able to inhibit in vitro the activity of many proteases present at the gastrointestinal tract we directed all our efforts to study its potential application in oral vaccine delivery. We showed that in BALB/c mice (n=5) oral delivery of OVA in the presence of BP resulted in a significantly increased OVA-specific T cell response (DTH assay; p