Mycobacterium bovis is the causative agent of tuberculosis in cattle but also infects other animals, including humans. Previous studies in cattle have demonstrated that the protection induced by BCG is not complete. In order to improve the protection efficacy of BCG, in this study we overexpressed Ag85B in a BCG Pasteur strain, by using an expression system based on the use of an auxotrophic st...

Intravesical instillation of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has been shown to be an effective form of immunotherapy for bladder cancer. This case report describes a patient who develops systemic BCG-osis following intravesical BCG instillation and demonstrates the importance of being aware of more severe complications associated with BCG immunotherapy.

A number of new tuberculosis (TB) vaccines have been or are entering clinical trials, which include genetically modified mycobacteria, mycobacterial antigens delivered by viral vectors, or mycobacterial antigens in adjuvant. Some of these vaccines aim to replace the existing BCG vaccine but others will be given as a boosting vaccine following BCG vaccination given soon after birth. It is clear ...

The bacilli Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is administered to all newborns in countries where tuberculosis is endemic. Immunocompromised hosts, namely patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection or primary immunodeficiencies, are especially prone to serious complications from this vaccine. We report three cases of BCG disease in children with primary immunodeficiencies: one with a parti...

BACKGROUND A new vaccine is urgently needed to combat tuberculosis. However, without a correlate of protection, selection of the vaccines to take forward into large-scale efficacy trials is difficult. Use of bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) as a surrogate for human Mycobacterium tuberculosis challenge is a novel model that could aid selection. METHODS Healthy adults were assigned to groups A and...

Despite its relatively poor efficacy, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has been used as a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine since its development in 1921. BCG induces robust T helper 1 (Th1) immune responses but, for many individuals, this is not sufficient for host resistance against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) infection. Here we provide evidence that early secreted antigenic target protein 6 (ES...

Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), an attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis, is the only vaccine available for tuberculosis (TB) control. BCG comprises a number of substrains that exhibit genetic and biochemical differences. Whether and how these differences affect BCG efficacy remain unknown. Compared to other BCG strains, BCG-Japan, -Moreau, and -Glaxo are defective in the production of phthio...

OBJECTIVE To test the safety and immunogenicity of two doses of autoclaved L. major (ALM) vaccine mixed with BCG. SETTING Kala-azar endemic area of eastern Sudan. DESIGN This was a randomised, double blind and BCG controlled phase I/II study. SUBJECTS Eighty healthy volunteers (forty children and forty adults) with no past history of kala-azar, no reactivity to leishmanin antigen and with...

Patients with high-grade Ta, T1, or carcinoma in situ non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) are at high risk for recurrence and, more importantly, progression. Thus, both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology recommend initial intravesical treatment with bacillus Calmette-Guerin(BCG) followed by maintenance therapy for a minimum of 1 year. The complete res...

Major research efforts are directed towards the development of a better antimycobacterial vaccine. But progress in the field of tuberculosis vaccine development has been hampered by the lack of human in vitro models to assess vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy. New candidate vaccines will have to be evaluated against the existing Mycobacterium bovis BCG "gold standard." It is therefore importa...