UMMS Affiliation
Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease & Immunology
Publication Date
2015-01-24
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Cardiovascular Diseases | Immunity | Immunology and Infectious Disease | Immunopathology | Immunoprophylaxis and Therapy | Parasitic Diseases
Abstract
Chagas disease (CD), caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is a prototypical neglected tropical disease. Specific immunity promotes acute phase survival. Nevertheless, one-third of CD patients develop chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy (CCC) associated with parasite persistence and immunological unbalance. Currently, the therapeutic management of patients only mitigates CCC symptoms. Therefore, a vaccine arises as an alternative to stimulate protective immunity and thereby prevent, delay progression and even reverse CCC. We examined this hypothesis by vaccinating mice with replication-defective human Type 5 recombinant adenoviruses (rAd) carrying sequences of amastigote surface protein-2 (rAdASP2) and trans-sialidase (rAdTS) T. cruzi antigens. For prophylactic vaccination, naive C57BL/6 mice were immunized with rAdASP2+rAdTS (rAdVax) using a homologous prime/boost protocol before challenge with the Colombian strain. For therapeutic vaccination, rAdVax administration was initiated at 120 days post-infection (dpi), when mice were afflicted by CCC. Mice were analyzed for electrical abnormalities, immune response and cardiac parasitism and tissue damage. Prophylactic immunization with rAdVax induced antibodies and H-2Kb-restricted cytotoxic and interferon (IFN)gamma-producing CD8+ T-cells, reduced acute heart parasitism and electrical abnormalities in the chronic phase. Therapeutic vaccination increased survival and reduced electrical abnormalities after the prime (analysis at 160 dpi) and the boost (analysis at 180 and 230 dpi). Post-therapy mice exhibited less heart injury and electrical abnormalities compared with pre-therapy mice. rAdVax therapeutic vaccination preserved specific IFNgamma-mediated immunity but reduced the response to polyclonal stimuli (anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28), CD107a+ CD8+ T-cell frequency and plasma nitric oxide (NO) levels. Moreover, therapeutic rAdVax reshaped immunity in the heart tissue as reduced the number of perforin+ cells, preserved the number of IFNgamma+ cells, increased the expression of IFNgamma mRNA but reduced inducible NO synthase mRNA. Vaccine-based immunostimulation with rAd might offer a rational alternative for re-programming the immune response to preserve and, moreover, recover tissue injury in Chagas' heart disease.
Keywords
Chagas diseas, cardiomyopathy, immunity, vaccine
Rights and Permissions
Copyright: © 2015 Pereira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
DOI of Published Version
10.1371/journal.ppat.1004594
Source
PLoS Pathog. 2015 Jan 24;11(1):e1004594. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004594. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
PLoS pathogens
Related Resources
PubMed ID
25617628
Repository Citation
Pereira, Isabela Resende; Vilar-Pereira, Glaucia; Marques, Virginia; da Silva, Andrea Alice; Caetano, Braulia; Moreira, Otacilio Cruz; Machado, Alexandre Vieira; Bruna-Romero, Oscar; Rodrigues, Mauricio Martins; Gazzinelli, Ricardo T.; and Lannes-Vieira, Joseli, "A human type 5 adenovirus-based Trypanosoma cruzi therapeutic vaccine re-programs immune response and reverses chronic cardiomyopathy" (2015). Open Access Articles. 2482.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/2482
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Cardiovascular Diseases Commons, Immunity Commons, Immunopathology Commons, Immunoprophylaxis and Therapy Commons, Parasitic Diseases Commons