• Vaccine Name: PEPf + Advax4
• Target Pathogen: Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• Target Disease: Tuberculosis
• Type: Subunit vaccine
• Status: Research
• Host Species for Licensed Use: Mouse
• Antigen: PEPf fusion protein is composed by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteases PepA (Rv0125), PepN (Rv2467), and Msh1 (Rv2672) (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
• PepA gene engineering:
  • Type: Fusion Protein
  • Description: This is a fusion protein preparation using PepA from TB (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• pepN gene engineering:
  • Type: Fusion Protein
  • Description: This is used for fusion protein vaccine development (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• Msh1 gene engineering:
  • Type: Fusion Protein
  • Description: This is used for fusion protein (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• Preparation: The PEPf fusion protein was expressed in Escherichia coli, purified by nickel affinity chromatography, and formulated with vaccine adjuvant Advax4 (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
• Immunization Route: Intramuscular injection (i.m.)

Mouse Response

• Host Strain: BALB/c
• Host age: 6-8 weeks
• Host gender: female
• Vaccination Protocol: Mice were primed with a single subcutaneous dose of BCG (1 × 10⁶ CFU) and boosted 30 days later with two intramuscular injections of PEPf (20 µg) formulated with Advax4 (1 mg), administered 15 days apart (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
• Immune Response: Vaccination with PEPf + Advax4 elicited strong antigen-specific CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ IFN-γ–producing T-cell responses in lymph nodes and lungs, indicating a strong Th1/Tc1 cellular immune response (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
• Challenge Protocol: Mice were challenged intravenously with Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv (1 × 10⁶ CFU) 30–45 days after vaccination, and the researchers checked how well the vaccine worked by measuring bacteria levels in the lungs, analyzing immune cells, and examining lung tissue 30 and 45 days later (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
• Efficacy: The BCG prime followed by PEPf + Advax4 boost significantly reduced lung bacterial loads compared to BCG alone (Junqueira-Kipnis et al., 2022).
• Information about this animal model: Mouse Model for TB research