Progress in tuberculosis vaccine development
The development of the first tuberculosis vaccine is starting to move forward as clinical testing has begun on candidates. Tuberculosis is an airborne bacterial disease that kills nearly two million people annually. An estimated two billion, one of every three people on the planet are infected with the disease, although only ten percent of these people develop the disease and become contagious.
Novel subunit vaccine candidates aimed at boosting previous BCG-prime vaccination and novel viable attenuated vaccine candidates aimed at substituting BCG have both completed the preclinical stage.
Despite these achievements, rational vaccine design against tuberculosis has not come to an end. Novel findings in basic immunology and microbiology will advance further improvements in vaccine development. These include the potential role of cross priming to induce more potent T-cell responses, the role of memory T cells and regulatory T cells in sustaining or curtailing optimal immune responses, respectively, as well as the involvement of cytokines in T-cell migration to non-immunologic tissue sites and in the generation of memory. Knowledge about basic mechanisms underlying optimum protection will not only have a direct impact on future vaccine design against tuberculosis but also help in the formulation of a set of biomarkers with predictive value for vaccine efficacy assessment.
Baumann S et al, …
Curr Opin Immunol. 2006 Jun 12
Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Department of
Immunology, Schumannstrasse 21-22, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
