Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar 9;9(1):57.
doi: 10.1038/s41541-024-00834-y.

Antigen identification strategies and preclinical evaluation models for advancing tuberculosis vaccine development

Saurabh Chugh #  1 , Ritika Kar Bahal #  2 , Rohan Dhiman  3 , Ramandeep Singh  4
Affiliations
Review

Antigen identification strategies and preclinical evaluation models for advancing tuberculosis vaccine development

Saurabh Chugh et al. NPJ Vaccines. .

Abstract

In its myriad devastating forms, Tuberculosis (TB) has existed for centuries, and humanity is still affected by it. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the causative agent of TB, was the foremost killer among infectious agents until the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the key healthcare strategies available to reduce the risk of TB is immunization with bacilli Calmette-Guerin (BCG). Although BCG has been widely used to protect against TB, reports show that BCG confers highly variable efficacy (0-80%) against adult pulmonary TB. Unwavering efforts have been made over the past 20 years to develop and evaluate new TB vaccine candidates. The failure of conventional preclinical animal models to fully recapitulate human response to TB, as also seen for the failure of MVA85A in clinical trials, signifies the need to develop better preclinical models for TB vaccine evaluation. In the present review article, we outline various approaches used to identify protective mycobacterial antigens and recent advancements in preclinical models for assessing the efficacy of candidate TB vaccines.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Summary of TB vaccine candidates in clinical development pipeline.
Globally currently 17 vaccine candidates are being evaluated in different stages of clinical development. These candidate vaccines can be classified into five categories: viral vector based, subunit vaccines, live attenuated, mRNA or whole cell vaccines from other strains of Mycobacterium. These vaccines are currently being evaluated in either Phase I or II or III.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Animal models used in TB research.
This figure highlights various animal models in TB vaccine development research and the advantages and disadvantages of each animal model. This figure was generated using BioRender.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Trunz BB, Fine P, Dye C. Effect of BCG vaccination on childhood tuberculous meningitis and miliary tuberculosis worldwide: a meta-analysis and assessment of cost-effectiveness. Lancet. 2006;367:1173–1180. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68507-3. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Fine PE. Variation in protection by BCG: implications of and for heterologous immunity. Lancet. 1995;346:1339–1345. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(95)92348-9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Colditz GA, et al. The efficacy of bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination of newborns and infants in the prevention of tuberculosis: meta-analyses of the published literature. Pediatrics. 1995;96:29–35. doi: 10.1542/peds.96.1.29. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rodrigues LC, Diwan VK, Wheeler JG. Protective effect of BCG against tuberculous meningitis and miliary tuberculosis: a meta-analysis. Int J. Epidemiol. 1993;22:1154–1158. doi: 10.1093/ije/22.6.1154. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Louise R, Skjot V, Agger EM, Andersen P. Antigen discovery and tuberculosis vaccine development in the post-genomic era. Scand. J. Infect. Dis. 2001;33:643–647. doi: 10.1080/00365540110026971. - DOI - PubMed