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Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, August 2007, p. 937-943, Vol. 14, No. 8
1071-412X/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/CVI.00046-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Immunization with Recombinant Sao Protein Confers Protection against Streptococcus suis Infection

Groupe de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses du Porc, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Université de Montréal, C.P. 5000, St.-Hyacinthe, Québec J2S 7C6, Canada,¹ Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada²

Received 23 January 2007/ Returned for modification 22 March 2007/ Accepted 25 May 2007

Sao is a Streptococcus suis surface protein recently identified as a potential vaccine candidate. In this study, recombinant Sao in combination with Quil A provided cross-protection against S. suis serotype 2 disease in mouse and pig vaccination protocols. Subcutaneous immunization of mice elicited strong immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody responses. All four IgG subclasses were induced, with the IgG2a titer being the highest, followed by those of IgG1, IgG2b, and IgG3. Challenge of the mice with S. suis strain 31533 resulted in a mortality rate of 80% for the control group, which received Quil A only. In contrast, all of the mice immunized with Sao survived. In a pig vaccination protocol, intramuscular immunization with Sao also elicited significant humoral antibody responses, and both the IgG1 and IgG2 subclasses were induced, with a predominance of IgG2 production. In vitro assay showed that Sao-induced antibodies significantly promoted the ability of porcine neutrophils in opsonophagocytic killing of S. suis. An aerosol challenge of the pigs with S. suis strain 166 resulted in clinical signs characteristic of S. suis infection in diseased pigs. The vaccine group showed significantly better survival, lower clinical scores, and less S. suis recovery from postmortem tissue samples than did the control group. Furthermore, this study also revealed that although challenge S. suis strains express Sao size variants, recombinant Sao conferred cross-protection. These data demonstrate that recombinant Sao formulated with Quil A triggers strong opsonizing antibody responses which confer efficient immunity against challenge infection with heterologous S. suis type 2.

Published ahead of print on 13 June 2007.