• Vaccine Name: T. gondii DNA vaccine encoding MIC8
• Target Pathogen: Toxoplasma gondii
• Target Disease: Toxoplasmosis
• Vaccine Ontology ID: VO_0004219
• Type: DNA vaccine
• Status: Research
• Host Species as Laboratory Animal Model: mouse
• Antigen: MIC8
• MIC8 gene engineering:
  • Type: DNA vaccine construction
  • Description: To construct the pVAX-MIC8 expression plasmid, the coding sequence of the T. gondii MIC8 gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from genomic DNA of T. gondii. The PCR product was cloned in pGEM-T easy vector (Promega, USA) and sequenced in both directions to ensure fidelity and generated pGEM-MIC8. The MIC8 fragment was inserted into the BamH I/Xba I sites of pVAX I by double digestion with BamH I/Xba I restriction enzymes, and ligation was finally done using T4 DNA ligase. The resulting plasmid was named pVAX-MIC8 (Liu et al., 2010).
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• DNA vaccine plasmid:
  • DNA vaccine plasmid name:
  • DNA vaccine plasmid VO ID: VO_0000024
• Immunization Route: Intramuscular injection (i.m.)

Mouse Response

• Host Strain: Kunming
• Vaccination Protocol: Mice (20 per group) received injections of 100 μl of pVAXMIC8 plasmid or empty pVAX I vector into each anterior tibial muscle (final plasmid concentration, 100 μg/100 μl). The injections were repeated using the same protocol 2 and 4 weeks after vaccination. Tail bleeds were performed on vaccinated mice on the day of first vaccination, second vaccination, and third vaccination and pre-challenge to ascertain the presence of specific anti-T. gondii antibodies (Liu et al., 2010).
• Challenge Protocol: Mice in all groups were intraperitoneally challenged with the virulent T. gondii RH strain (10^3 tachyzoites per mouse) 2 weeks after the last immunization (Liu et al., 2010).
• Efficacy: Immunization of mice with pVAXMIC8 dramatically increased the survival time (10.3± 0.9 days) compared with control mice which died within 5 days of challenge (Liu et al., 2010).