Comparative evaluation of therapeutic DNA vaccines against Trypanosoma cruzi in mice

Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is a major public health problem in most of Latin America. A key priority is the development of new treatments, due to the poor efficacy of current ones. We report here the comparative evaluation of therapeutic DNA vaccines encoding various T. cruzi antigens. ICR mice infected with 500 parasites intraperitoneally were treated at 5 and 12 days postinfection with 20 microg of plasmid DNA encoding T. cruzi antigens TSA-1, TS, ASP-2-like, Tc52 or Tc24. Treatment with plasmid encoding TS and/or ASP-2-like antigens had no significant effect on parasitemia or survival. Treatment with Tc52 DNA significantly reduced parasitemia, as well as cardiac parasite burden, and improved survival, although myocarditis was not significantly affected. Finally, treatment with plasmids encoding Tc24 and TSA-1 induced the most complete control of disease as evidenced by significant reductions in parasitemia, mortality, myocarditis and heart parasite burden. These data demonstrate that therapeutic vaccine efficacy is dependent on the antigen and suggest that DNA vaccines encoding Tc24, TSA-1, and Tc52 represent the best candidates for further studies of a therapeutic vaccine against Chagas disease.

Control of Trypanosoma cruzi infection and changes in T-cell populations induced by a therapeutic DNA vaccine in mice

Previous work showed that immunotherapy with a DNA vaccine encoding Trypanosoma cruzi antigen TSA-1 reduced cardiac tissue damage and improved survival in mice when administered during the acute or chronic phases of T. cruzi infection. In the present study, we investigated changes in T-cell populations induced by DNA vaccine immunotherapy. ICR mice were infected with 500 T. cruzi blood trypomastigotes and treated during the acute or chronic phases with two 100 microg doses of DNA vaccine. Analysis of stained splenocytes by flow cytometry indicated that the therapeutic vaccine induced a rapid increase in the number of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in both the acute and chronic phases. Also, there was a rapid increase in T. cruzi-specific IFNgamma-producing CD8+ T cells following treatment during the chronic phase. The effects of these changes on the control of infection required longer time periods to be detectable but resulted in a reduction in myocarditis and T. cruzi parasite burden in both phases of the infection, as assessed by histopathologic analysis and semi-quantitative PCR detection of T. cruzi in cardiac tissue. These results suggest that DNA vaccines that induce CD8+ T-cells activity and IFNgamma production, would be good candidates for effective therapeutic vaccination against T. cruzi infection.