Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

VACCINES

Protection against tuberculosis by mucosal BCG administration

Nature Medicine volume 25, pages 199–201 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Vaccination with the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) into the lungs of Rhesus macaques induces specific, local immune responses that delay infection in some animals and completely prevent it in others while protecting against TB disease.

Grave underinvestment in TB research and development over many decades and the exceptionally complex relationship between Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and its obligate human host are responsible for our limited understanding of protective immunity against Mtb. As a consequence, rational design of novel TB vaccination approaches cannot be underpinned by in-depth scientific understanding in ways that have proven successful for vaccines against other infections. In this issue of Nature Medicine, Dijkman et al.4 address this critical knowledge gap by identifying immune mediators implicated in protection against TB afforded by BCG vaccination in a nonhuman primate (NHP) model and provide evidence that local immunization in the lung is more protective than immunization in the skin.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Vaccine-induced protection against Mtb infection and TB is dependent on mycobacteria-specific immune responses at the site of infection.

References

  1. World Health Organization. Global Tuberculosis Report 2018 (WHO, 2018).

  2. Zwerling, A.et al. PLoS Med. 8, e1001012 (2011).

  3. Mangtani, P. et al. Clin. Infect Dis. 58, 470–480 (2014).

  4. Dijkman, K. et al. Nat. Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0319-9 (2019).

  5. Qin, L., Gilbert, P. B., Corey, L., McElrath, M. J. & Self, S. G. J. Infect. Dis. 196, 1304–1312 (2007).

  6. Jasenosky, L. D., Scriba, T. J., Hanekom, W. A. & Goldfeld, A. E. Immunol. Rev. 264, 74–87 (2015).

  7. Gideon, H. P.et al. PLoS Pathog. 11, e1004603 (2015).

  8. Cadena, A. M. et al. PLoS Pathog. 14, e1007305 (2018).

  9. Roy, A. et al. BMJ 349, g4643 (2014).

  10. Nemes, E. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 379, 138–149 (2018).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine and Division of Immunology, Department of Pathology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Thomas J. Scriba & Elisa Nemes

Authors
  1. Thomas J. Scriba
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elisa Nemes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas J. Scriba.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Scriba, T.J., Nemes, E. Protection against tuberculosis by mucosal BCG administration. Nat Med 25, 199–201 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0347-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0347-0

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing