Summary
Salmonella Typhimurium is a leading cause of food poisoning per year. Additionally, the emergence of multi drug resistant bacterial strains pose a major problem to human health. To overcome the rise in antibiotic resistance there is a need for new strategies such as the development of new vaccines. Vaccination is a prophylactic measure, however there are no vaccines against Salmonella Typhimurium. We have previously used a bioinformatics approach to identify 124 Salmonella antigens of which we selected 4 for vaccine studies. So far, we have seen that our vaccine approach provided protection against salmonellosis and outperformed the Salmonella vaccines known in the field. We hypothesise that our vaccine approach will decrease severity of infection/ prevent initial colonization.
Project Outcomes
Salmonella enterica is a leading cause of food poisoning and typhoid disease. Additionally, the emergence of multi drug resistant Salmonella strains pose a major threat to human health. To overcome the rise in antibiotic resistance there is a need for new intervention strategies, such as vaccines. However, the Salmonella vaccines that exist only provide transient protection against typhoid disease and do not protect the young. A vaccine that provides long lived protection against all strains of Salmonella is desperately needed. Here, we used a bioinformatics approach to identify vaccine antigens that for the first time provide protection against lethal challenge with Salmonella. Additionally, our preliminary data reveal that our vaccine provides cross protection against Salmonella Enteritidis.
Ms Rochelle Da Costa
PhD Student
University of Queensland, Australia
Collaborators:
Professor Ian Henderson, Director, Institute of Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia
Professor Adam Cunningham, Professor of Functional Immunity, University of Birmingham, UK