Researchers Find Plague Vaccine Effective in Mice

Researchers at Wake Forest University in North Carolina announced recently that mice treated with a new combination vaccine have shown immunity to the plague (see GSN, April 18).

Adding a protein called flagellin to a protein taken from plague bacteria created antibody levels 500,000 times higher than simply using the bacteria alone as a vaccine, researchers said. Immunized mice survived exposure in tests to plague bacterium, “but the control mice succumbed in three days,” said principal investigator Steven Mizel.

“Flagellin can function as an effective adjuvant, making a vaccine that protects against the most dangerous form of the plague — pneumonic plague,” Mizel told the American Gastroenterological Association.

Mizel said mice were protected for three months after receiving the vaccine.

The work at the Wake Forest School of Medicine is funded by federal antibioterror dollars.

“The development of a vaccine against the pneumonic or respiratory form of plague is a major goal of the biodefense initiative,” Mizel said (Wake Forest release/Medical News Today, May 22).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.