Tuberculosis (TB) vaccine-induced airway luminal T cells (ALT) have recently been shown to be critical to host defense against pulmonary TB. However, the mechanisms that maintain memory ALT remain poorly understood. In particular, whether respiratory mucosal exposure to environmental agents such as endotoxin may regulate the size of vaccine-induced ALT population is still unclear. Using a murin...

Bovine tuberculosis (Tb) caused by Mycobacterium bovis has proved refractory to eradication from domestic livestock in countries with wildlife disease reservoirs. Vaccination of wild hosts offers a way of controlling Tb in livestock without wildlife culling. This study was conducted in a Tb-endemic region of New Zealand, where the introduced Australian brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) i...

background: tuberculosis (tb) is a major cause of death worldwide. finding an effective vaccine against tb is the best way to control it. several vaccines against this disease have been developed but none are completely protective. the aim of this study was to design and construct a cloning vector containing the mycobacterium tuberculosis (m. tuberculosis) heat shock protein x (hspx). methods: ...

Vaccines based on virus-like particles (VLPs) have proven effective in humans and animals. In this regard, the baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) is one of the technologies of choice to generate such highly immunogenic vaccines. The extended use of these vaccines for human and animal populations is constrained because of high production costs, therefore a significant improvement in pro...

A Th1/Th2 imbalance in tuberculosis (TB) patients caused by a decreased Th1 response and an increased Th2 response is a significant factor in the pathogenesis and development of TB. Protective immune responses to TB include bacteriostatic and bactericidal responses. Unfortunately, however, immunoprotection and immune pathology co-exist in TB patients. Immunotherapy for TB principally aims to re...

Part I. Basic Principles. TB vaccines cannot prevent establishment of the infection. They can only prevent an early pulmonary tubercle from developing into clinical disease. A more effective new vaccine should optimize both cell-mediated immunity (CMI) and delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) better than any existing vaccine. The rabbit is the only laboratory animal in which all aspects of the h...

MDR-TB is TB that is resistant to the two medicines most commonly used to treat it, Isoniazid and Rifampicin. Without the correct drugs MDR-TB is untreatable and in most cases fatal. Though curing 'normal' TB is cheap and effective a six month course of medicines costs US$ 10 treating drug resistant TB is a hundred times more expensive. Even then a cure is not guaranteed. With no effective vacc...

In both humans and animals, controversy exists concerning the duration of protection induced by BCG vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) and whether revaccination enhances protection. A long-term study was undertaken to determine whether BCG-vaccinated calves would be protected against challenge with Mycobacterium bovis 2½ years after vaccination and to determine the effect of revaccination after ...