Kaur Manpreet, Bhatnagar Rakesh
Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering, School of Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi - 110067, India.
Recent Pat Biotechnol. 2011 Dec;5(3):148-59. doi: 10.2174/187220811797579097.
Bacillus anthracis is the etiological agent of anthrax. Although anthrax is primarily an epizootic disease; humans are at risk for contracting anthrax. The potential use of B. anthracis spores as biowarfare agent has led to immense attention. Prolonged vaccination schedule of current anthrax vaccine and variable protection conferred; often leading to failure of therapy. This highlights the need for alternative anthrax countermeasures. A number of approaches are being investigated to substitute or supplement the existing anthrax vaccines. These relied on expression of Protective antigen (PA), the key protective immunogen; in bacterial or plant systems; or utilization of attenuated strains of B. anthracis for immunization. Few studies have established potential of domain IV of PA for immunization. Other targets including the spore, capsule, S-layer and anthrax toxin components have been investigated for imparting protective immunity. It has been shown that co-immunization of PA with domain I of lethal factor that binds PA resulted in higher antibody responses. Of the epitope based vaccines, the loop neutralizing determinant, in particular; elicited robust neutralizing antibody response and conferred 97% protection upon challenge. DNA vaccination resulted in varying degree of protection and seems a promising approach. Additionally, the applicability of monoclonal and therapeutic antibodies in the treatment of anthrax has also been demonstrated. The recent progress in the direction of anthrax prophylaxis has been evaluated in this review.
炭疽芽孢杆菌是炭疽病的病原体。虽然炭疽主要是一种动物流行病，但人类也有感染炭疽的风险。炭疽芽孢杆菌孢子作为生物战剂的潜在用途引起了极大关注。当前炭疽疫苗的接种计划冗长且提供的保护效果不一，常常导致治疗失败。这凸显了需要替代的炭疽应对措施。正在研究多种方法来替代或补充现有的炭疽疫苗。这些方法依赖于在细菌或植物系统中表达关键的保护性免疫原保护性抗原（PA），或者利用减毒的炭疽芽孢杆菌菌株进行免疫。很少有研究确定PA的结构域IV的免疫潜力。还研究了包括芽孢、荚膜、S层和炭疽毒素成分在内的其他靶点，以赋予保护性免疫。已表明将PA与结合PA的致死因子的结构域I共同免疫可产生更高的抗体反应。在基于表位的疫苗中，特别是环中和决定簇引发了强烈的中和抗体反应，并在攻击时提供了97%的保护。DNA疫苗产生了不同程度的保护，似乎是一种有前景的方法。此外，单克隆抗体和治疗性抗体在炭疽治疗中的适用性也得到了证实。本综述评估了炭疽预防方面的最新进展。
