AI Article Synopsis

  • Both Neisseria gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis use factor H to avoid being killed by the immune system's complement system, but they bind it differently: gonococci use porin while meningococci use factor H binding protein (fHbp).
  • fHbp is currently being studied as a potential vaccine component against meningococcal infections.
  • Meningococci are specifically adapted to evade the human immune response, making it challenging to assess vaccine effectiveness using animal models, as these models might not accurately reflect how the vaccine performs in humans.

Article Abstract

Both Neisseria gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis bind to factor H which enhances their ability to evade complement-dependent killing. While porin is the ligand for human fH on gonococci, meningococci use a lipoprotein called factor H binding protein (fHbp) to bind to factor H and enhance their ability to evade complement-dependent killing. This protein is currently being intensively investigated as a meningococcal vaccine candidate antigen. Consistent with the observation that meningococci cause natural infection only in humans, the organism resists human complement, and are more readily killed by complement from lower animals. This human species-specific complement evasion has important implications for evaluation of vaccine-elicited antibodies using non-human complement sources and development of animal models of disease.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2768413PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2008.11.060DOI Listing

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