Vaccination strategies to enhance local immunity and protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

To determine the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis 10 kD culture filtrate protein (CFP10), and to evaluate strategies that enhance local immunity, we used C57Bl/6 DR4 mice that were transgenic for human HLA DRB1*0401, because CFP10 contains epitopes for DRB1*0401 but not for C57Bl/6 mice. Intramuscular immunization with a DNA vaccine encoding CFP10 elicited production of IFN-γ by systemic CD4+ T cells, and one intravenous dose of the CFP10-based DNA vaccine coated with polyethylenimine (PEI) stimulated IFN-γ production by lung CD4+ cells and reduced the pulmonary bacillary burden. We conclude that CFP10 is a potential vaccine candidate and that coating vaccines with PEI enhances local protective immunity to tuberculosis.