Current status of tuberculosis and recombinant bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccines

Publication date: May 2012 Source:Journal of Oral Biosciences, Volume 54, Issue 2 Author(s): Naoya Ohara Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease and a global concern of enormous proportions. One-third of the world's population is latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and 2 million people die from TB annually. The only currently available vaccine—bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG)—is the most extensively used vaccine ever, with a record 3 billion doses administered during the last 4 decades. Because BCG is a live attenuated vaccine, it can be developed by genetic engineering to serve as a foreign antigen–producing multivalent vaccine. A new antibiotic-free host–vector system has been developed that expresses the foreign antigen from BCG by using a thymidylate synthase ThyX-deletion mutant of BCG and a plasmid harboring the thyX gene. This host–vector system is stable and can be useful for clinical purposes.
Source: Journal of Oral Biosciences - Category: Biomedical Science Source Type: research