Mucosal vaccination against tuberculosis using Ag85A-loaded immunostimulating complexes

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the major devastating diseases in the world, mainly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Furthermore, multi-drug resistant TB and extremely drug resistant TB are becoming big problems globally. Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is the only available vaccine which provides protection against TB. The BCG vaccine is effective in children but not recommended in adults and elderly patients due to an associated low risk of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and variable effectiveness of the vaccine. The main aim of this research study is to develop such a vaccine which will provide a better and safer profile in children and adults, as well as in elderly patients. In this present study, we prepared pulmonary tubercular vaccine by using an Antigen 85 complex (Ag85)-loaded nanocarrier such as the immunostimulating complex (ISCOM). Immunological outcomes clearly indicated significant improvement in humoral as well as cellular immune responses after pulmonary immunization with ISCOMs containing Quil A in mice.