Yersinia enterocolitica: Subversion of adaptive immunity and implications for vaccine development

Enteric Yersinia spp. invade Peyer's patches, disseminate to lymphoid tissues, and induce mucosal and systemic immune responses. Many virulence factors of Yersinia enterocolitica have been investigated in detail and were found to act on host cells involved in innate and adaptive immunity. Recent work explored as to whether attenuated Y. enterocolitica or recombinant components of Y. enterocolitica can be used as tools for vaccination. We and others have tested whether by means of the type three secretion system in attenuated Y. enterocolitica strains antigens might be delivered to antigen-presenting cells in order to induce CD8 and CD4 T cell responses. Alternatively, recombinant components of Y. enterocolitica such as invasin protein which binds to β1 integrins of host cells have been tested for their ability to target antigen along with microparticles (fused to invasin) to antigen-presenting cells and to act as adjuvant. The work summarized in this article demonstrates that Y. enterocolitica and its components might be useful tools for novel vaccination strategies; in fact, invasin when fused to antigen and coated to microparticles might induce both CD4 and CD8 T cell responses. Likewise, attenuated Y. enterocolitica live carrier strains were reported to induce both CD8 and some CD4 T cell responses. However, we need to know more about how Y. enterocolitica subverts functions of antigen-presenting cells in order to design mutants with optimized antigen delivery features and deletion in those virulence factor that contribute to subversion of innate or adaptive immune responses.