Chlamydial Immunity and Vaccine Development

沙眼衣原体血清型a - l3是高地方性致盲性沙眼和性传播感染的病原体，后者是发展中国家一种被忽视的疾病，在世界范围内流行，是输卵管炎的主要原因。沙眼约有2亿人患有，SDI在世界范围内流行，引起输卵管炎，是盆腔炎（PID）和输卵管因素不孕症（TFI）的重要原因。控制这些重要的人类疾病是该项目的长期目标。为此，我们的目标是开发一种安全有效的疫苗来预防衣原体疾病。衣原体的专性细胞内生活方式、复杂的发育生物学和抗原结构阻碍了疫苗开发的进展。衣原体疫苗开发的一个主要障碍是无法获得能够针对引起眼生殖器感染的多种血清变异体提供广泛反应性保护性免疫的抗原（15）。这项工作的直接目标是确定这些抗原，（ii）将其定性为中和抗体的目标，以及（iii）产生重组抗原和表达重组抗原的感染载体，这些抗原和载体可以在感染和疾病的临床前模型中作为疫苗进行实验测试。

Chlamydia trachomatis serovars A-L3 are the causative agents of hyperendemic blinding trachoma, a largely neglected disease of the developing world, and sexually transmitted infections that are epidemic world wide and a major cause of salpingitis. Trachoma is afflicts an estimated 200 million people and SDI are epidemic worldwide causing salpingitis an important cause of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) tubal factor infertility (TFI). Control of these important human diseases is the long term goal of this project. Towards this end our goal is to develop a safe and efficacious vaccine to prevent chlamydial disease. The obligate intracellular life style, complex developmental biology, and antigenic structure of chlamydiae have severally hindered progress in vaccine development. A major hurdle in chlamydial vaccine development has been the unavailability of antigens capable of providing broadly reactive protective immunity against the multiple serovariants (15) that cause oculogenital infections. The immediate goal of this work was to identify such antigen(s), (ii) characterize them as targets of neutralizing antibodies, and (iii)generate recombinant antigen and infectious vectors expressing recombinant antigen that can be experimentally tested as vaccines in pre-clinical models of infection and disease.