Nature Communications (Jul 2020)

A second generation leishmanization vaccine with a markerless attenuated Leishmania major strain using CRISPR gene editing

  • Wen-Wei Zhang,
  • Subir Karmakar,
  • Sreenivas Gannavaram,
  • Ranadhir Dey,
  • Patrick Lypaczewski,
  • Nevien Ismail,
  • Abid Siddiqui,
  • Vahan Simonyan,
  • Fabiano Oliveira,
  • Iliano V. Coutinho-Abreu,
  • Thiago DeSouza-Vieira,
  • Claudio Meneses,
  • James Oristian,
  • Tiago D. Serafim,
  • Abu Musa,
  • Risa Nakamura,
  • Noushin Saljoughian,
  • Greta Volpedo,
  • Monika Satoskar,
  • Sanika Satoskar,
  • Pradeep K. Dagur,
  • J. Philip McCoy,
  • Shaden Kamhawi,
  • Jesus G. Valenzuela,
  • Shinjiro Hamano,
  • Abhay R. Satoskar,
  • Greg Matlashewski,
  • Hira L. Nakhasi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17154-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Here, the authors engineer an attenuated knock-out Leishmania (LmCen −/−) vaccine that is safe in immunocompromised mice and induces an immune response and protection similar to leishmanization with wild-type Leishmania. Since LmCen −/− is antibiotic resistant marker free, it is a candidate for clinical development.