• Vaccine Name: T. cruzi DNA vaccine encoding TcSSP4
• Target Pathogen: Trypanosoma cruzi
• Target Disease: Chagas disease
• Type: DNA vaccine
• Status: Research
• Host Species for Licensed Use: Mouse
• Antigen: TcSSP4 (Arce-Fonseca et al., 2011)
• Immunization Route: Intramuscular injection (i.m.)
• Description: T. cruzi DNA vaccine encoding TcSSP4 protein emulsified in Freund's complete adjuvant aimed to induce an immune response (Arce-Fonseca et al., 2011)

Mouse Response

• Host Strain: BALB/c
• Host age: 6-8 weeks
• Host gender: Female
• Vaccination Protocol: For protein immunization, each mouse was immunized i.p. with 10 μg of rTcSSP4 protein emulsified with Freund's complete adjuvant. DNA immunizations were done twice at 2 week intervals in the tibialis anterioris muscle with the plasmids pBCSSP4 or pBk-CMV resuspended in PBS. (Arce-Fonseca et al., 2011)
• Immune Response: When compared with controls, statistically significant differences were found in IL-6 levels in mice immunized with either rTcSSP4 protein or pBCSSP4 plasmid. The IL-6 levels were higher at 3h (p<0.01) and lower at 12 h (p<0.01). For TNF-α, statistically significant differences were found in mice immunized with rTcSSP4 protein at 3 h (p<0.01) and 12 h (p<0.01) when compared with control mice, and no significant differences were found in mice immunized with pBCSSP4 plasmid. However, a clear difference was found regarding IFN-γ production; only 3 h sera from animals immunized with the pBCSSP4 plasmid showed significant amounts of this cytokine. No detectable amounts of IFN-γ were found in the other conditions. (Arce-Fonseca et al., 2011)
• Challenge Protocol: Mice immunized with the rTcSSP4 protein were challenged i.p. with 1x10^4 or 3x10^4 bloodstream trypomastigotes (BT) 3 or 7 days post-immunization. Mice immunized with DNA were challenged 2 weeks after the last immunization with 1x104 BT. Parasitemia was monitored every 3 days. (Arce-Fonseca et al., 2011)