• Vaccine Name: T. cruzi Tc24 vaccine
• Target Pathogen: Trypanosoma cruzi
• Target Disease: Chagas disease
• Type: Subunit vaccine
• Status: Research
• Host Species for Licensed Use: Mouse
• Antigen: Tc24 (Barry et al., 2019) - Tc24 has been found to induce strong CD8+ T-cell responses in past studies and has shown promise to be effective against a wide diversity of T. cruzi parasite strains (Arnal et al., 2020)
• Tc24 (Obselete) gene engineering:
  • Type: Recombinant protein preparation
  • Description:
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• Immunization Route: Intramuscular injection (i.m.)
• Description: Vaccine containing recombinant protein Tc24 formulated with an emulsion containing the Toll-like receptor 4 against E6020 to combat chronic T. cruzi infection. (Barry et al., 2019)

Mouse Response

• Host Strain: BALB/c
• Vaccination Protocol: Mice were infected with T. cruzi and allowed to progress past the acute phase of disease, characterized by elevated parasitemia resolving by 40 days post-infection, before vaccination at 70 days post-infection with Tc24+E6020-SE or a sham vaccine. (Barry et al., 2019)
• Immune Response: The vaccine elicits a greater than 5-fold increase in Tc24-specific secreted IFNγ compared to the Tc24 control. IgG2a, a mouse antibody isotype associated with a TH1-bias, is most robust in the vaccine compared to the controls, further validating the cytokine results. In comparison, both the Tc24+E6020-SE vaccine and the Tc24 control produce a robust IgG1 antibody response. These results indicate that the Tc24 recombinant protein is capable of producing an antigen-specific immune response, but that the E6020-SE adjuvant is necessary to induce a favorable TH1-biasing of the resulting immune response. (Barry et al., 2019)