IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, Badalona, Spain.
Autonomous University of Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain.
Front Immunol. 2023 Apr 6;14:1126170. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1126170. eCollection 2023.
Syphilis is a sexually or vertically (mother to fetus) transmitted disease caused by the infection of subspecie (TPA). The incidence of syphilis has increased over the past years despite the fact that this bacterium is an obligate human pathogen, the infection route is well known, and the disease can be successfully treated with penicillin. As complementary measures to preventive campaigns and early treatment of infected individuals, development of a syphilis vaccine may be crucial for controlling disease spread and/or severity, particularly in countries where the effectiveness of the aforementioned measures is limited. In the last century, several vaccine prototypes have been tested in preclinical studies, mainly in rabbits. While none of them provided protection against infection, some prototypes prevented bacteria from disseminating to distal organs, attenuated lesion development, and accelerated their healing. In spite of these promising results, there is still some controversy regarding the identification of vaccine candidates and the characteristics of a syphilis-protective immune response. In this review, we describe what is known about TPA immune response, and the main mechanisms used by this pathogen to evade it. Moreover, we emphasize the importance of integrating this knowledge, in conjunction with the characterization of outer membrane proteins (OMPs), to expedite the development of a syphilis vaccine that can protect against TPA infection.
梅毒是一种性传播或垂直传播（母婴传播）的疾病，由亚种（TPA）感染引起。尽管这种细菌是一种专性人类病原体，感染途径众所周知，并且可以用青霉素成功治疗，但近年来梅毒的发病率有所上升。作为预防运动和早期治疗受感染个体的补充措施，梅毒疫苗的开发对于控制疾病传播和/或严重程度可能至关重要，特别是在上述措施有效性有限的国家。在上个世纪，已经在临床前研究中测试了几种疫苗原型，主要在兔子中。虽然它们都没有提供针对感染的保护，但有些原型阻止了细菌向远端器官传播，减轻了病变的发展，并加速了它们的愈合。尽管这些结果很有希望，但对于鉴定疫苗候选物和梅毒保护性免疫反应的特征仍存在一些争议。在这篇综述中，我们描述了已知的 TPA 免疫反应，以及这种病原体逃避它的主要机制。此外，我们强调了整合这些知识的重要性，以及对外膜蛋白（OMPs）的特征描述，以加速开发能够预防 TPA 感染的梅毒疫苗。
