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BCG vaccination of infants confers Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain-specific immune responses to leucocytes
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  • Selvakumar Subbian,
  • Pooja Singh,
  • Afsal Kolloli,
  • Elisa Nemes,
  • Thomas Scriba,
  • Willem Hanekom,
  • Gilla Kaplan
Selvakumar Subbian
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Pooja Singh
University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Cell Biology
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Afsal Kolloli
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
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Elisa Nemes
University of Cape Town
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Thomas Scriba
University of Cape Town
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Willem Hanekom
Africa Health Research Institute
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Gilla Kaplan
University of Cape Town
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Abstract

The efficacy of bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination against tuberculosis is highly variable, and protective immunity elicited by BCG is poorly understood. We compared the cytokine/chemokine profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) obtained from infants BCG-vaccinated at birth and from non-vaccinated infants. The PBMC from 10-week old BCG-vaccinated infants released higher levels of pro-inflammatory molecules than PBMCs from the non-vaccinated counterpart. In vitro exposure of PBMCs from BCG-vaccinated infants, to two different Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains, showed distinct pro- and anti-inflammatory patterns. Thus, BCG-induced infant immune responses and their protective ability may be shaped by the nature of the infecting Mtb strain.