Evaluation of immune response to recombinant LFD1-PA4 chimeric protein.

Background: Anthrax is a particularly dangerous infectious disease that affects humans and livestock. Efficacious vaccines that can rapidly induce a long-term immune response are required to prevent anthrax infection in humans. Domains 4 and 1 of the protective antigen (PA) and lethal factor (LF), respectively, have very high antigenic properties.

Aims: In this experimental study, the pET28a-- expression vector was designed, constructed and transferred into BL21 (DE3) plysS.

Methods: For this purpose, gene was amplified by p XbaI HindIII E. coli Expression and purification of chimeric proteins were confirmed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Western blotting techniques. The chimera LFD1-PA4 and mixed LFD1+PA4 proteins were injected four times into mice and antibody production was relativity evaluated by - (ELISA) test.

Results: The results showed that both chimeric and mixed proteins are immunogenic, but LFD1-PA4 has a higher potential to stimulate mice immune system.

Conclusion: LFD1-PA4 chimeric protein induced a higher immune response than LFD1+PA4 mixed protein and elicited antibody responses to LF and edema factor (EF), therefore, it holds promise to be a more effective trivalent vaccine candidate to use in anthrax prevention.