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Infection and Immunity, November 2005, p. 7375-7380, Vol. 73, No. 11
0019-9567/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/IAI.73.11.7375-7380.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Division of Molecular Microbiology, Center of Molecular Biosciences, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara, Okinawa 903-0213, Japan,1 Department of Molecular Parasitology, Ehime University School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime 791-0295, Japan,2 Department of Entomology, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangkok 10400, Thailand,3 Department of Pathobiology, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, Thailand,4 Laboratory of Global Animal Resource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan,5 Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Animal Health, National Agricultural Research Organization, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0856, Japan,6 Malaria Vaccine Development Branch, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Maryland 20852,7 Cell-Free Science and Technology Research Center, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Ehime 790-8577, Japan8
Received 28 June 2005/ Returned for modification 25 July 2005/ Accepted 20 August 2005
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Mucosal vaccination with nonreplicating particles or recombinant proteins in combination with effective mucosal adjuvants has demonstrated their ability to induce local protective immunity against mucosal pathogens (32). Nasal vaccines in particular are by far the most effective mucosal vaccines, capable of priming a full range of local as well as systemic immune responses against protective antigenic epitopes (13, 14). In addition, this type of topically administrable, needle-free, noninvasive vaccine may be safer than injection-based parenteral vaccines by reducing the risk of infection from blood-borne pathogens, and may also be cost-effective because administration does not require highly trained medical or veterinary personnel.
Although mucosal vaccines have several attractive features over parenteral vaccines, their targets had been almost exclusively limited to mucosal infections, and their potential applicability to nonmucosal pathogens such as arthropod vector-borne parasites and viruses seemed to be unappreciated. However, previous studies with malaria parasites (1, 5, 15, 23, 24, 27, 30) and Japanese encephalitis virus (unpublished data), which are prototypical mosquito-borne infectious protozoa and virus, respectively, indicated that mucosal vaccines could be effective alternative immunization methods.
In this study we evaluated the ability of transmission-blocking mucosal vaccines against field isolates of P. falciparum. Our results indicate that recombinant Pfs25 is sufficiently immunogenic when coadministered intranasally with a mucosal adjuvant to achieve robust immune protection against parasite transmission, suggesting that noninvasive mucosal vaccines are a promising alternative approach for malaria prevention.
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Serum and mucosal sample collection. Blood was collected from immunized mice one week after the third immunization by cardiac puncture under complete anesthesia confirmed by eyelid reflex responses. Immune sera prepared from the collected blood were used for antibody titer analysis and transmission-blocking assays. Nasal secretions were collected from exsanguinated animals immediately after sacrifice by washing the nasal cavities several times with 200 µl of PBS. The samples were centrifuged to remove insoluble debris and supernatant was immediately analyzed for specific antibodies. For collection of intestinal secretory antibodies, a fraction of the small intestine (approximately 3 cm long) was excised and cut perpendicularly to open the intestinal tubes. The excised samples were immersed in 0.5 ml of PBS and vigorously vortexed, followed by centrifugation to remove insoluble debris. Supernatant was used for antibody analysis.
Antibody titer determination by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for serum, nasal and intestinal secretions. Serum and mucosal samples were analyzed for the presence of specific antibodies by ELISA as described previously (1). Briefly, 96-well ELISA plates (Sumilon, Sumitomo Bakelite, Japan) were coated with recombinant Pfs25 proteins (33). The plates were washed with PBS containing 0.05% Tween-20 (PBST) three times and blocked with 1% BSA in PBS. Serial dilutions of serum samples were applied to wells in duplicates. Secondary antibodies specific for each mouse antibody isotype (immunoglobulin G [IgG], IgM and IgA) and IgG subclass (IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b, and IgG3) was used for detection. Optical density (OD) was measured by microplate reader (Bio-Rad Laboratories) at 415 nm. The OD415 value of 0.1 was used as the baseline to determine the endpoint titers for specific serum IgG. In some experiments, serum antibody levels were expressed as OD415 measurement after making appropriate dilutions as indicated. Antibodies present in nasal secretions were analyzed by diluting the nasal washings by 15-fold with PBS before applying the samples to microtiter plates. To analyze specific antibodies in intestinal secretions, intestinal washings collected as described above were diluted with PBS by 2-fold prior to ELISA. Student's t test was performed to compare antibody levels of serum and mucosal samples between different test groups.
Recognition of native parasite by immunofluorescence assay. All human materials used in this study were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Thai Ministry of Public Health and the Human Subjects Research Review Board of the United States Army. For purification of gametocytes, peripheral blood was collected by heparinized syringes under written informed consent from patients who came to the malaria clinics in the Mae Sod district in the Tak province of northwestern Thailand. Infection with P. falciparum was confirmed by Giemsa stain of thick and thin blood smears. Cultured P. falciparum parasite preparations rich in zygotes and small numbers of ookinetes were spotted on slides and fixed with acetone as previously described (25). The slides were blocked with PBS containing 5% nonfat milk and incubated with Pfs25/CT immune sera. The slides were washed with ice-cold PBS for 5 min and incubated with fluorescein isothiocyanate-conjugated anti-mouse antibody, followed by washing with ice-cold PBS. Slides were examined by confocal scanning laser microscope (Nikon C-1).
Transmission-blocking assays. Peripheral blood was collected from four volunteer patients as described above. Their parasitemia were ranging from 0.04 to 0.18%, and gametocytemia from 0.002% to 0.011%. Collected blood was aliquoted into tubes (300 µl/tube) and plasma was removed. Mouse immune sera were diluted (2-, 8- and 32-fold) with heat-inactivated normal human AB serum prepared from malaria naïve donors. Each diluted test serum was mixed with P. falciparum-infected blood cells as described above (1:1 vol/vol ratio) and incubated for 15 min at room temperature. The mixture was placed in a membrane feeding apparatus kept at 37°C to allow starved Anopheles dirus A mosquitoes (Bangkok colony, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences) to feed on the blood meals for 30 min. Unfed mosquitoes were removed and only fully engorged mosquitoes were maintained for a week by giving 10% sucrose water in the insectary.
For each mouse test immune serum, 20 mosquitoes (i.e., a total of 80 mosquitoes for four patients' blood samples) were dissected and analyzed by staining with 0.5% mercurochrome to count the number of oocysts developed within the mosquito midgut under the microscope. Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine the difference in oocyst counts per mosquito between control and immunized groups. Fisher's exact probability test was used to examine the difference of infection rates between control and immunized groups. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
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FIG. 1. Serum antibody responses induced by intranasal immunization of BALB/c and A/J mice with Pfs25/CT, CT alone, or PBS were analyzed by ELISA. Groups of six to seven mice were immunized three times at weeks 0, 3, and 5, and immune sera were collected at week 6 for analysis. A. Pfs25-specific serum IgG responses. Serum IgG titers were defined as the highest serum dilution giving 0.1 OD415, and the data were expressed as the mean titers ± standard error. *, P < 0.01 versus CT alone or PBS. B. Conformation-dependent serum IgG responses. Data are expressed as the average OD415 ± standard error for immune sera diluted to 1:20,000. *, P < 0.001 versus boiled or reduced form of Pfs25 proteins. C. Serum IgG subclass analysis for Pfs25/CT immune sera. Data are expressed as the average OD415 ± standard error for immune sera diluted to 1:9,000. D. Analysis of serum Ig isotypes other than IgG (i.e., IgM, IgE, and IgA). Data were expressed as the average OD415 ± standard error for immune sera diluted to 1:3,000.
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FIG. 2. Mucosal antibody responses induced by intranasal immunization of mice with Pfs25/CT, CT alone, or PBS were analyzed by ELISA. Nasal wash samples were collected immediately after exsanguination by washing the nasal cavities several times with 200 µl of PBS. The collected samples were diluted 15-fold with PBS prior to analysis. A. Pfs25-specific secretory IgA (S-IgA) and IgG in nasal secretions. Data are expressed as the average OD415 ± standard error. *, P < 0.01 versus CT alone or PBS. B. IgG subclass analysis of nasal IgG collected from mice immunized with Pfs25/CT. Results are expressed as the average OD415 of the pooled nasal washings. C. CT-specific secretory IgA and IgG in nasal secretions. Results are expressed as the average OD415 ± standard error.
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FIG. 3. Ookinete-specific reactivity of Pfs25/CT immune sera was confirmed by immunofluorescence analysis. The immune sera specifically recognized native Pfs25 proteins expressed on the surface of P. falciparum ookinetes. The immune sera did not react with gametocytes. DIC, differential interference contrast microscopy. IFA, fluorescence confocal scanning laser microscopy. G, gametocyte. IO, immature ookinete. O, mature ookinete. Bar = 5 µm.
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TABLE 1. Transmission-blocking efficacy against Thai Plasmodium falciparum isolates
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We found strong correlations of Pfs25-specific serum antibody levels (Fig. 1) with the oocyst counts (correlation coefficient r = 0.717), with the mosquito infection rate (r = 0.832), and with the complete transmission-blocking rate (r = 0.878). In contrast, no correlation was observed between CT-specific antibody levels and the transmission-blocking activities.
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Our recent studies with rodent malaria P. yoelii also demonstrated that intranasal immunization of mice with recombinant Pys25 proteins (25) provided complete transmission-blocking immunity in both active and passive immunization regimens (unpublished data). Unlike the results of our previous studies with P. vivax (1) and P. yoelii (unpublished data), we found that the serum IgG subclasses induced by Pfs25/CT immunization were not strongly biased towards IgG1. It rather induced comparable levels of IgG1, IgG2a, and IgG2b (Fig. 1C), implying that mixed Th1 and Th2 responses were induced. Malkin et al. observed that the presence of heat-labile components in the membrane feeder enhanced the transmission-blocking activity of Pvs25 antisera (21). Because all heat-labile components were inactivated by heat treatment during the transmission-blocking assays performed in our present and previous studies, we might have underestimated the levels of actual transmission-blocking activity of mucosally induced immune sera. However, regardless of the types of immunity induced, specific antibody titers were the best correlate for protection, and no such correlation was found between CT-specific antibody titers and protective efficacy: these observations were consistent with other transmission-blocking vaccine studies (2, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18-20). Taken together, transmission-blocking activity was clearly correlated with levels of vaccine antigen-specific serum IgG, regardless of the repertoire of IgG subclasses induced, strain of mouse used, difference in Plasmodium species targeted, or type of immunization method employed.
In contrast to the general perception that mucosal vaccines are much less effective for the induction of systemic antibody responses than parenteral vaccines, we found that intranasal vaccines, when coadministered with a strong mucosal adjuvant like CT, are not necessarily considered inferior to parenteral vaccines at least in a murine model (1, 2, 16, 18; unpublished data). Systemic antibodies raised against Pichia pastoris-expressed recombinant Pfs25 proteins (33) by intranasal immunization specifically recognized native proteins expressed on ookinete surface (Fig. 3), but barely recognized heat-denatured or reduced form of proteins (Fig. 1B), indicating that at least some conformational epitopes were retained in the course of intranasal immunization and correctly presented to the immune system in an intact form for the induction of biologically active antibodies that functioned as transmission-blocking agents within the mosquito midgut.
The highly efficacious transmission-blocking activity observed with mucosally induced immune sera supports the potential of applying mucosal vaccines to malaria prophylactics. Further, our recent mucosal immunization studies with various antigens such as formalin-inactivated Japanese encephalitis virus vaccine and the paramyosin antigen of Schistosoma japonicum demonstrated that mucosal vaccines induced strong and long-lasting humoral as well as cellular immunity comparable to that with parenteral vaccines when strong adjuvants like CT were coadministered (unpublished data). These results indicate that CT is a strong immune potentiator that may be able to induce immunological memory against heterologous antigens in a rodent model. However, CT needs to be precluded from clinical use due to its enterotoxicity and potential hazardous effects on olfactory nerves (12). Therefore, the particular vaccination regimen presented in this study using CT as an adjuvant needs to be considered as a model system to prove the effectiveness of mucosal vaccines against malaria transmission.
Since the mucosal immunogenicity of Pfs25 may not depend on a particular mucosal adjuvant or delivery system, specific targeting or immunomodulation of professional antigen-presenting cells such as dendritic cells and B cells with other, potentially safer agents (3, 8, 9, 22, 26, 28, 31) than CT may offer new approaches for the development of malaria vaccines and warrant further evaluation of mucosal and other less invasive vaccination regimens as alternative strategies for malaria control in the future.
We thank Jeeraphat Sirichaisinthop and the staffs of the Office of Vector-Borne Disease Control 1, Saraburi, Thailand, for constant help in setting up the field sites, and the staffs of the Department of Entomology, AFRIMS, Bangkok, Thailand. We also thank the Malaria Vaccine Initiative at the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health for their constant help with transmission-blocking vaccine development.
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