Dietary zinc deficiency impairs humoral and cellular immune responses to BCG and ESAT-6/CFP-10 vaccination in offspring and adult rats

Our data clearly indicate that dietary zinc deficiency can weaken the plasma cytokine levels and cell-mediated responses to BCG and ESAT-6/CFP-10 vaccine via decreasing T cell proliferation, down-regulating INF-γ and TNF-α production and affecting the expression of ZIP2, ZIP8, NF-κB and IL-6 mRNA. In addition, the vaccine immunogenicity of BCG and ESAT-6/CFP-10 was not significantly affected by the time of vaccination.