Toxoplasma gondii: DNA vaccination

Exp Parasitol. 2007 Feb 1; [Epub ahead of print]

Toxoplasma gondii: DNA vaccination with genes encoding antigens MIC2, M2AP, AMA1 and BAG1 and evaluation of their immunogenic potential.

Dautu G, Munyaka B, Carmen G, Zhang G, Omata Y, Xuenan X, Igarashi M.

National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan.

A combination of antigenic regions of microneme proteins have been previously reported as being protective against chronic toxoplasmosis. In this work, we evaluated immune responses induced by immunizing BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice intradermally with plasmid DNA encoding the protein sequences of Toxoplasma gondii AMA1, MIC2, M2AP and BAG1. Mice immunized with the AMA1 gene developed high levels of serum IgG2a and c antibodies as well as cellular immune responses associated with IFN-gamma synthesis suggesting a modulated Th1 type of response. Immunization with the AMA1 gene resulted in a partial but significant protection against the acute phase of toxoplasmosis compared to MIC2, M2AP and BAG1 genes. Therefore, the AMA1 gene appears to generate a strong specific immune response and also provides effective protection against toxoplasmosis more than the MIC2, M2AP and BAG1 genes.

PMID: 17379212 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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