Safety and Immunogenicity of Boosting BCG Vaccinated Subjects with BCG: Comparison with Boosting with a New TB Vaccine, MVA85A.
Abstract
Objectives: To investigate the safety and immunogenicity of a booster BCG vaccination delivered intradermally in healthy, BCG vaccinated subjects and to compare with a previous clinical trial where BCG vaccinated subjects were boosted with anew TB vaccine, MVA85A.
Design: Phase I open label observational trial, in the UK. Healthy, HIV-negative, BCG vaccinated adults were recruited and vaccinated with BCG. The primary outcome was safety; the secondary outcome was cellular immune responses to antigen85, overlapping peptides of antigen 85A and tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) detected by ex vivo interferongamma (IFN-c) ELISpot assay and flow cytometry.
Results and Conclusions: BCG revaccination (BCG-BCG) was well tolerated, and boosting of pre-existing PPD-specific T cell responses was observed. However, when these results were compared with data from a previous clinical trial, where BCG was boosted with MVA85A (BCG-MVA85A), MVA85A induced significantly higher levels (>2-fold) of antigen 85-specific CD4+ T cells (both antigen and peptide pool responses) than boosting with BCG, up to 52 weeks post-vaccination(p = 0.009). To identify antigen 85A-specific CD8+ T cells that were not detectable by ex vivo ELISpot and flow cytometry, dendritic cells (DC) were used to amplify CD8+ T cells from PBMC samples. We observed low, but detectable levels of antigen 85A-specific CD8+ T cells producing IFNc (1.5% of total CD8 population) in the BCG primed subjects after BCG boosting in 1 (20%) of 5 subjects. In contrast, in BCG-MVA85A vaccinated subjects, high levels of antigen 85A-specific CD8+T cells (up to 14% total CD8 population) were observed after boosting with MVA85A, in 4 (50%) of 8 subjects evaluated. In conclusion, revaccination with BCG resulted in modest boosting of pre-existing immune responses to PPD and antigen 85, but vaccination with BCG-MVA85A induced a significantly higher response to antigen 85 and generated a higher frequency of antigen 85A-specific CD8+ T cells.
Citation
Whelan, K.T.; Pathan, A.A.; Sander, C.R.; Fletcher, H.A.; Poulton, I.; Alder, N.C.; Hill, A.V.S.; McShane, H. Safety and Immunogenicity of Boosting BCG Vaccinated Subjects with BCG: Comparison with Boosting with a New TB Vaccine, MVA85A. PLoS ONE (2009) 4 (6) e5934. [DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005934]