Poster Presentation 8th Australasian Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics Development Meeting 2020

Development of peptide based subunit vaccine for Tuberculosis   (#308)

Viet Tram Duong 1 , Istvan Toth 1 , Mariusz Skwarczynski 1
  1. University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, QUEENSLAND, Australia

Despite being curable,tuberculosis(TB) affects 10 million people annually and remains in the top 10 causes of fatality worldwide in recent years [1]. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the infectious agent, typically infects the lung but can spread through the body and affect other organs as well. A person becomes infected after inhaling bacili droplets exhaled from active TB patients. The infected person can become ill immediately or carry the infection latently. Latent infection can be reactivated once the host immune system is weakened. Vaccination has been critical in saving lives and reduce the burden of many infectious diseases in the last century. The current Bacillus Calmette Guerin vaccine offers inconsistent protection against the most prevalent form of TB, pulmonary TB. Peptide based subunit vaccine is a promising approach to combat TB as it minimizes microbial components, still elicits the desired immune response and avoids pathogenic reversion which is possible in vaccines comprised of live attenuated pathogens [2]. To cover all of the pathogen subtypes, the chosen epitope must be highly conserved. T helper cells are crucial linker between innate and adaptive immunity and hence are vital in peptide based vaccine. Immune responses without the T-helper component are inconsistent in heterogenous population and memory responses are diminished. The early secreted antigenic target 6 kDa (ESAT-6) is encoded in the chromosomal locus of RD1, an essential determinant of mycobacterial virulence and is present in pathogenic Mtb but absent in BCG. However, ESAT-6 has inherently low immunogenicity and would require a suitable adjuvant or delivery system to evoke sufficient immune response. As the currently available adjuvants are toxic with adverse reaction potentials, we aimed to incorporate ESAT-6(1-20)into novel self-adjuvanting polyhydrophobic amino acid  or polymer based delivery systems for the development of a peptide based nanovaccine against TB.

  1. World Health Organization. Global tuberculosis report (2019).
  2. Carino, G., Mathiowitz, E., Oral insulin delivery, Adv. Drug Del. Rev., 35: 249-257 (1999).