Adjuvant capacity of a microbial component to enhance immunity against Bordetella pertussis

JULIETA FERNÁNDEZ; GRISELDA MORENO; FEDERICO SISTI; JEAN CLAUDE SIRARD; MARTÍN RUMBO; DANIELA HOZBOR

Mar del Plata. Buenos Aires

Congreso; XLIIIReunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB); 2007

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> Bordetella pertussis (Bp) is the etiological agent of pertussis or whooping cough, an important respiratory disease, which remains a problem in public health even in countries with high vaccination coverage. Because of that, research on pertussis is mainly focused on development of new strategies towards a better disease control. In this work we analyze the adjuvant capacity of a microbial component –flagellin of Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium (Fla)- in a mucosal pertussis vaccination. We analyzed the innate immune response of mice intranasally stimulated with either Bp or Bp + Fla, by real time RT-PCR. Specific primers for chemokine CCL20 and the cytokines TNF-a and IL-6 were used. We observed that CCL20 and IL-6 expression was enhanced when mice were challenged with Bp + Fla (33 ± 2 for CCL20 and 192 ± 29 for IL-6) compared to Bp alone (9.7 ± 1.2 for CCL20 and 65 ± 22 for IL-6). We also analyzed the adjuvant capacity of flagellin in lethal-dose pertussis protection assay. In these experiments mice were intranasally immunized with dead whole cell bacteria with or without flagellin as adjuvant and then challenged with live B. pertussis (109 CFU per 50 µl). The results obtained showed that flagellin behaves as a good adjuvant since more animals survived in the experiments (44% compared to 33%)