Anthrax Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Anthrax, including details on bacillus anthracis, contagiousness, exposure, effects.

Induction of cytotoxic T lymphocyte response against Mycobacterial antigen using domain I of anthrax edema factor as antigen delivery system.

Chandra S, Kaur M, Midha S, Gorantala J, Bhatnagar R

School of Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India.

We have investigated the efficiency of N-terminal 1-260 residues of Edema factor (EFn) as a delivery system for ESAT-6, an antigenic protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H(37)R(v), into the cytosol of mammalian cells. The EFn.ESAT-6 recombinant protein was obtained by genetic fusion of EFn and ESAT-6 DNA. Our data shows that in the presence of PA, EFn.ESAT-6 fusion protein is internalized into the cytosol of antigen presenting cells, and the splenocytes produced both Th1 and Th2 cytokines in vitro. Further, EFn.ESAT-6 elicited effective cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response in an in vitro CTL assay. This study for the first time demonstrates that EFn can be used as a vehicle to deliver heterologous proteins of therapeutic importance.

Published 20 April 2007 in Biochem Biophys Res Commun, 357(1): 50-5.
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