A critical role for CD8 T cells in a nonhuman primate model of tuberculosis.

The role of CD8 T cells in anti-tuberculosis immunity in humans remains unknown, and studies of CD8 T cell-mediated protection against tuberculosis in mice have yielded controversial results. Unlike mice, humans and nonhuman primates share a number of important features of the immune system that relate directly to the specificity and functions of CD8 T cells, such as the expression of group 1 CD1 proteins that are capable of presenting Mycobacterium tuberculosis lipids antigens and the cytotoxic/bactericidal protein granulysin. Employing a more relevant nonhuman primate model of human tuberculosis, we examined the contribution of BCG- or M.

Coadministration of cidofovir and smallpox vaccine reduced vaccination side effects but interfered with vaccine-elicited immune responses and immunity to monkeypox.

While the smallpox vaccine, Dryvax or Dryvax-derived ACAM2000, holds potential for public immunization against the spread of smallpox by bioterror, there is serious concern about Dryvax-mediated side effects. Here, we report that a single-dose vaccination regimen comprised of Dryvax and an antiviral agent, cidofovir, could reduce vaccinia viral loads after vaccination and significantly control Dryvax vaccination side effects. However, coadministration of cidofovir and Dryvax also reduced vaccine-elicited immune responses of antibody and T effector cells despite the fact that the reduced priming could be boosted as a recall response after monkeypox virus challenge.

Immune gene networks of mycobacterial vaccine-elicited cellular responses and immunity.

Gene networks of protective lymphocytes after immune activation with live attenuated vaccines remain poorly characterized. Because Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine can confer protection against fatal forms of tuberculosis in humans and monkeys, we made use of macaque models to optimally study immune gene networks after BCG vaccination/infection. We first established and validated a large-scale real-time quantitation system and then used it to measure expression levels of 138 immune genes after BCG vaccination/infection of rhesus macaques.