Vaccines for Bacteria from Mycoplasma Family
Because of the lack of a cell wall, Mycoplasmas are not affected by many common antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis such as beta-lactam antibiotics. Although some can be treated with antibiotics, new strategies for the prevention and treatment of bacterial diseases have been explored due to the emergence of multi-drug resistant bacterial strains.
Mycoplasma
Mycoplasmas are the known smallest free-living prokaryotes lacking a rigid cell wall, having an extremely small genome size of 580-2,200 kilobase pairs. Mycoplasmas belong to the family prokaryotes Mycoplasmataceae prokaryotes and order Mycoplasmatales, six of the 16 species of human Mycoplasma can cause diseases. Due to their small size, Mycoplasmas cannot be detected by light microscopy and does not produce visible turbidity in liquid growth medium because of their small cellular mass. The absence of a cell wall barrier in Mycoplasmas is unique among the prokaryotes, therefore these organisms are not sensitive to cell wall antimicrobial agents such as β-lactams and are not stained by Gram staining.
Fig 1 The structure of Mycoplasma.
Vaccines for Mycoplasma pneumoniae
The cell wall-free Mycoplasma pneumonia (M. pneumoniae) is one of the most common agents of respiratory tract diseases in humans. Adhesion of M. pneumoniae to the host respiratory epithelium is an essential first stage of infection and a precondition for successful colonization. The P1 protein (about 170 kDa) of M. pneumoniae has been determined to be a major adhesion factor mediating attachment of M. pneumoniae to respiratory epithelium. Antibiotics can control M. pneumoniae infection, however, the emergence of some resistant strains increases the risk of reinfection. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent atypical pneumonia by vaccination. Since the protective effect of inactivated vaccine, live vaccine, and cell extract vaccine is unsatisfactory, the M. pneumoniae vaccine is mainly transferred to a DNA vaccine or a subunit vaccine based on adhesion protein of M. pneumoniae.
Vaccines for Mycoplasma hominis
Mycoplasma hominis (M. hominis ) is mainly colonized the urogenital tract, where it sometimes causes infections, as well as in the respiratory tract, surgical sites, and the abdominal cavity. It is a genetically heterogeneous cell wall-free bacterial species and is one of the smallest self-replicating organisms known so far. Because of extensive variation of genomic and antigenic structure, the diagnosis and control of M. hominis infection are difficult. One method to solve this problem is to target constant and specific sequences of more than one surface protein and then use these fragments in chimeric proteins to increase the likelihood of detection of specific antibodies, as well as lay the foundation for the novel vaccine against M. hominis.
Vaccines for Mycoplasma genitalium
Mycoplasma genitalium (M. genitalium), first isolated by Tully and colleagues in 1981 from the urethral specimens of 2 nongonococcal urethritis patients, is the main cause of urinary and reproductive tract infections, which can lead to infertility. M. genitalium belongs to the class Mollicutes, which contains small bacteria without cell walls. The attachment protein MgPa of M. genitalium has been identified as a homolog to the P1 adhesin of M. pneumonia. Like P1 protein of M. pneumoniae, MgPa is the immunodominant protein of M. genitalium and is very important for the diagnosis and vaccine development of M. genitalium.
Creative Biolabs provides vaccine development services for bacteria of mycoplasma family, from protocol design, material preparation to final data analysis and vaccine production. If you have any needs, please feel free to contact us.
All of our products can only be used for research purposes. These vaccine ingredients CANNOT be used directly on humans or animals.
