Abstract
The researchers working on the novel vaccine are keeping their hopes high that it will be able to elicit an immunological response and provide protection against the disease.
The novel vaccine has been developed in the hopes that it will stimulate an immunological response and provide protection against the disease. Using knowledge of OMV bio-genesis and their roles in bacterial virulence and pathogenesis, researchers have developed a new vaccine for tuberculosis that combines immunization with targeted medication delivery.
The creation of the TB vaccine
An experimental vaccination against tuberculosis has been produced by Rachit Agarwal, an assistant professor at the Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering, with a team of scientists under his command at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru (TB).
Using a new method consists of using microorganisms that release spherical vesicles that are coated in gold nanoparticles for delivery to immune cells, triggering a robust immune response against the bacterium tuberculosis, a germ that annually results in the deaths of about a million people.
The results of their investigation were written up and presented in a journal called Biomaterials Advances.
Agarwal, the senior author of the research, talked about the novel vaccines with much enthusiasm, saying that they are safer compared to a live bacterium and that the property of being membrane-derived makes them able to carry all kinds of antigens. The newly designed vaccine consists in using OMVs that are known for having the potential to stimulate an immune response against a disease.
What are OMVs?
Also known as Outer Membrane Vesicles, OMVs are spherical membrane-bound particles that consist of proteins and lipids that certain bacteria generate that have the potential to induce an immune response.
A breakdown of the new vaccine’s expected effects
According to a statement released by IISc in the context of comparing the new vaccine to subunit vaccine, which has been the primary weapon in India’s campaign against tuberculosis up until this point, the OMVs have the advantage of containing a variety of antigens, which makes the generated immune response much efficient than the classical vaccine. This is in contrast to subunit vaccines, which typically only contain a limited number of antigens.
Researchers also noticed that OMV-AuNPs were taken up more readily by human immune cells than either OMVs or gold nanoparticles alone.
Conclusion
Concerns about limiting or eliminating TB are increased by the fact that BCG is found to be relatively ineffective at preventing M.tuberculosis infection in adults. This calls for researching new approaches to vaccine development to improve vaccine delivery and eradicate the disease in a more effective way.
Due to their size and composition variability, fragility, and poor stability in biological buffers, OMVs provide significant hurdles when used in vaccine production. However, scientists are working on pairing OMVs with nanoparticles to stimulate an even stronger immunological response.
