title: A molecular mucosal adjuvant to enhance immunity against pneumococcal infection in the elderly.
abstract: Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) causes a major upper respiratory tract infection often leading to severe illness and death in the elderly. Thus, it is important to induce safe and effective mucosal immunity against this pathogen in order to prevent pnuemocaccal infection. However, this is a very difficult task to elicit protective mucosal IgA antibody responses in older individuals. A combind nasal adjuvant consisting of a plasmid encoding the Flt3 ligand cDNA (pFL) and CpG oligonucleotide (CpG ODN) successfully enhanced S. pneumoniae-specific mucosal immunity in aged mice. In particular, a pneumococcal surface protein A-based nasal vaccine given with pFL and CpG ODN induced complete protection from S. pneumoniae infection. These results show that nasal delivery of a combined DNA adjuvant offers an attractive potential for protection against the pneumococcus in the elderly.
authors.affiliation: Division of Mucosal Immunology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fukuyama
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Yorihiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Junichiro
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ohori
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Gen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sugita
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Kazuyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Aso
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujihashi
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: David E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Briles
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Jerry R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: McGhee
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Kohtaro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujihashi
keywords: Aging; Bacterial infection; Mucosa; Vaccination