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- Title
Resistance to Chronic Toxoplasma gondii Infection Induced by a DNA Vaccine Expressing GRA16.
- Authors
Hu, Ling-Ying; Zhang, Nian-Zhang; Zhang, Fu-Kai; Wang, Meng; Gao, Qi; Wang, Jin-Lei; Zhu, Xing-Quan
- Abstract
Toxoplasma gondii can infect all warm-blooded animals including human beings. T. gondii dense granule protein 16 (TgGRA16) as a crucial virulence factor could modulate the host gene expression. Here, a DNA vaccine expressing TgGRA16 was constructed to explore the protective efficacy against T. gondii infection in Kunming mice. The immune responses induced by pVAX-GRA16 were also evaluated. Mice immunized with pVAX-GRA16 could elicit higher levels of specific IgG antibody and strong cellular response compared to those in controls. The DNA vaccination significantly increased the levels of cytokines (IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-4, and IL-10) and the percentages of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in mice. After lethal challenge, mice immunized with pVAX-GRA16 (8.4±0.78 days) did not show a significant longer survival time than that in controls (7.1±0.30 days) (p>0.05). However, in chronic toxoplasmosis model (administration of 10 brain cysts of PRU strain orally), numbers of tissue cysts in mice immunized with pVAX-GRA16 were significantly reduced compared to those in controls (p<0.05) and the rate of reduction could reach 43.89%. The results indicated that the TgGRA16 would be a promising vaccine candidate for further development of effective epitope-based vaccines against chronic T. gondii infection in mice.
- Subjects
BIOLOGICAL models; CYSTS (Pathology); CYTOKINES; DNA; GENE expression; IMMUNOGLOBULINS; MICE; PROTEINS; T cells; TOXOPLASMOSIS; VACCINES
- Publication
BioMed Research International, 2017, Vol 2017, p1
- ISSN
2314-6133
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1155/2017/1295038