Comparison of a Regulated Delayed Antigen Synthesis System withIn Vivo-Inducible Promoters for Antigen Delivery by Live AttenuatedSalmonellaVaccines
ABSTRACTInduction of strong immune responses against a vectored antigen in hosts immunized with live attenuatedSalmonellavaccines is related in part to the amount of antigen delivered and the overall fitness of theSalmonellavector in relation to its ability to stimulate the host immune system. Constitutive high-level antigen synthesis causes a metabolic burden to the vaccine vector strain that can reduce the vaccine strain's ability to interact with host lymphoid tissues, resulting in a compromised immune response. A solution to this problem is the use of systems that regulate antigen gene expression, permitting high levels of antigen synthesis only after the vaccine strain has reached its target tissues.In vivo-inducible promoters (IVIPs) are often used to accomplish this. We recently developed an alternative strategy, a regulated delayed antigen synthesis (RDAS) system, in which the LacI-repressible Ptrcpromoter controls antigen gene expression by adding arabinose. In this paper, we compared the RDAS system with two commonly used IVIPs, PssaGand PpagC. Three nearly identical plasmids, differing only in the promoter used to direct transcription of the pneumococcalpspAgene, Ptrc, PssaG, or PpagC, were constructed and introduced into isogenicSalmonellavaccine strains with or without arabinose-inducible LacI synthesis. Mice immunized with the RDAS strain developed slightly higher titers of mucosal and serum anti-PspA antibodies than PpagC-immunized mice, while titers in mice immunized with the PssaGstrain were 100-fold lower. Both the RDAS and PpagCstrains conferred similar levels of protection againstStreptococcus pneumoniaechallenge, significantly greater than those for the PssaGstrain or controls. Thus, RDAS provides another choice for inclusion in the live vaccine design to increase immunogenicity.