Reservoir Targeted Vaccine Against Borrelia burgdorferi: A New Strategy to Prevent Lyme Disease Transmission

• Published in: The Journal of infectious diseases 2014-06, Vol.209 (12), p.1972-1980
• Main Authors: Richer, Luciana Meirelles, Brisson, Dustin, Melo, Rita, Ostfeld, Richard S., Zeidner, Nordin, Gomes-Solecki, Maria
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Administration, Oral; Animals; Antibodies; Antigens, Surface - immunology; Applied microbiology; BACTERIA; Bacterial diseases; Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins - immunology; Bacterial Vaccines - immunology; Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; Borrelia burgdorferi; Borrelia burgdorferi - immunology; Borrelia infections; Disease Reservoirs - microbiology; Disease Reservoirs - veterinary; Disease risk; Disease transmission; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human bacterial diseases; Infections; Infectious diseases; Ixodidae; Lipoproteins - immunology; Lyme disease; Lyme Disease - immunology; Lyme Disease - prevention & control; Lyme Disease - transmission; Lyme disease vaccines; Lyme Disease Vaccines - immunology; Major and Brief Reports; Medical sciences; Mice; Microbiology; Miscellaneous; Peromyscus - immunology; Peromyscus - microbiology; Ticks; Ticks - immunology; Ticks - microbiology; Tropical bacterial diseases; Vaccination; Vaccination - methods; Vaccines, antisera, therapeutical immunoglobulins and monoclonal antibodies (general aspects)
• ISSN: 0022-1899; 1537-6613
• DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiu005

A high prevalence of infection with Borrelia burgdorferi in ixodid ticks is correlated with a high incidence of Lyme disease. The transmission of B. burgdorferi to humans can be disrupted by targeting 2 key elements in its enzootic cycle: the reservoir host and the tick vector. In a prospective 5-year field trial, we show that oral vaccination of wild white-footed mice resulted in outer surface protein A-specific seropositivity that led to reductions of 23% and 76% in the nymphal infection prevalence in a cumulative, time-dependent manner (2 and 5 years, respectively), whereas the proportion of infected ticks recovered from control plots varied randomly over time. Significant decreases in tick infection prevalence were observed within 3 years of vaccine deployment. Implementation of such a long-term public health measure could substantially reduce the risk of human exposure to Lyme disease.