title: Assessment of Live Plague Vaccine Candidates.
abstract: Since its creation in the early twentieth century, live plague vaccine EV has been successfully applied to millions of people without severe complications. This vaccine has been proven to elicit protection against both bubonic and pneumonic plague, and it is still in use in populations at risk mainly in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Despite extensive efforts in developing subunit vaccines, there is a reviving interest in creation of a precisely attenuated strain of Yersinia pestis superior to the EV that can serve as a live plague vaccine with improved characteristics. Here we summarize decades of experience of the Russian anti-plague research in developing a standard protocol for early-stage evaluation of safety and immunogenicity of live plague vaccines. This protocol allows step-by-step comparison of the novel test candidates with the EV vaccine by using subcutaneous immunization and bubonic plague infection models in two animal species, e.g., guinea pigs and mice.
authors.affiliation: Department for Anthroponosis and Zoonotic Diseases, Saratov Scientific and Research Veterinary Institute of the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations, Saratov, 410028, Russia. feodorovav@mail.ru.
authors.forename: Valentina A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Feodorova
authors.affiliation: Department of Vaccine Control, Scientific Center for Expertise of Medical Application Products, Moscow, 121002, Russia.
authors.forename: Lidiya V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Sayapina
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, 77555, USA. vlmotin@utmb.edu.
authors.forename: Vladimir L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Motin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D010931:Plague Vaccine / Q000276:immunology*; D014774:Virulence; D015010:Yersinia pestis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000472:pathogenicity
chemical_list: D010931:Plague Vaccine
keywords: Animal model; Attenuation; Infectious disease; Live vaccine; Mutant; Plague; Protection; Vaccine candidate; Virulence; Yersinia pestis