Ready for another Lyme Vaccine?

[Guest guest]

1: Vaccine. 2005 Sep 27; [Epub ahead of print]

Oral vaccine that breaks the transmission cycle of the Lyme disease

spirochete can be delivered via bait.

Gomes-Solecki MJ, Brisson DR, Dattwyler RJ.

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, New York Medical College,

NYMC, BSB 308, Valhalla, New York, NY 10595, USA; Biopeptides, Corp.

Valhalla, NY, USA.

Borrelia burgdorferi causes Lyme disease, a potentially debilitating

human disease for which no vaccine is currently available. We

developed

an oral bait delivery system for an anti-B. burgdorferi vaccine based

in OspA. Mice were immunized orally via gavage and bait feeding.

Challenge was performed via Ixodes scapularis field nymphs carrying

multiple B. burgdorferi strains. Vaccination protected 89% of the

mice

and the systemic immune response was skewed toward IgG2a/2b

production.

Moreover, this oral vaccine reduced the pathogen in the tick vector

by

eight-fold. We conclude that this oral vaccine induces a protective

systemic immune response against a variety of infectious B.

burgdorferi

strains found in nature and therefore it can eliminate this zoonotic

pathogen from its major host reservoirs. Because we observed

elimination of the spirochete from the tick vector, a broad delivery

of

this oral vaccine to wildlife reservoirs is likely to disrupt the

transmission cycle of this pathogen.

PMID: 16198456 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher