Protective efficacy of vaccination with NcMIC3 and NcMIC8 against Neospora caninum infection in mice

Abstract

Microneme proteins (MICs) are important for Apicomplexan parasite invasion due to their adhesion to host cells. Several studies have indicated that Neospora caninum MIC3 and MIC8 are important adhesion factors and potential vaccine candidates against neosporosis. In this study, we evaluated the protective efficacy of recombinant proteins and DNA vaccines of NcMIC3 and NcMIC8. BALB/c mice were immunized with rNcMIC3, rNcMIC8, pcDNA3.1-NcMIC3 and pcDNA3.1-NcMIC8 respectively, and challenged with N. caninum tachyzoites. The immune responses were evaluated through cytokine, antibody measurements and the parasite burden in the mice brain tissues. Serological analysis showed that recombinant protein vaccines induced higher levels of immunoglobulin G (IgG) than other groups. The percentage of IgG1 and IgG2a in the recombinant protein groups was higher than the other groups, and with a predominance of IgG1 over IgG2a, suggesting that recombinant protein vaccines elicited a Th2-type immune response, while DNA vaccines mainly produce a Th1-type immune response. In addition, mice immunized with rNcMIC3 and rNcMIC8 a had lower parasite burden in brain tissue compared with the other groups. These results demonstrate that rNcMIC3 and rNcMIC8 could induce humoral and Th2-type immune response, leading to a considerable level of resistance against neosporosis.

Keywords

NcMIC3 / NcMIC8 / Neospora caninum / vaccination

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Acknowledgements

Project support was provided by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0501200), the National Key Basic Research Program (973 program) of China (2015CB150300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31772730).

Compliance with ethics guidelines Taotao Zhang, Xiao Zhang, Qun Liu, Jianhai Xu, and Jing Liu declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. All applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2019. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)