Aromatic-dependent Salmonella as live vaccine presenters of foreign epitopes as inserts in flagellin

Synthetic oligonucleotides specifying amino acid sequences identified as epitopes of various foreign antigens (cholera toxin subunit B, hepatitis B surface protein and others) have been inserted at an EcoRV-EcoRV deletion site in a cloned Salmonella flagellin gene; the resulting plasmids, when placed in flagellin-negative Escherichia coli or Salmonella sp. strains, caused production of flagellin expressing the epitope. If the chimeric flagellin allowed formation of flagella, the epitope was exposed at the surface of the flagellar filaments. A delta aroA flagellin-negative S. dublin live vaccine strain given plasmids carrying various chimeric flagellin genes was administered to mice, etc. Serum antibody specific for the foreign epitope was in all cases evoked by parenteral administration; oral route administration was effective in the case of two epitopes of hepatitis B surface protein but not effective for several other epitopes. Several i.p. inocula of the live vaccine strain with an insert corresponding to the 15 N-terminal amino acids of the M protein of Streptococcus pyogenes type 5 evoked M-specific antibody with opsonic activity, and the mice were (incompletely) protected against a lethal challenge of S. pyogenes type 5. The non-virulence of Salmonella sp. strains with complete blocks in the aromatic biosynthesis pathway, even for animals with genetically determined or other defects in host defences, can be completely accounted for by their requirement for p-aminobenzoic acid, since non-leaky pabB mutations caused similar attenuation. Two transposon insertions at aroE caused little or no attenuation, presumably because they did not result in complete block of the relevant step in biosynthesis. The limited growth of delta aroA strains in mouse tissues parallels that which precedes the bacteriostasis caused by addition of a sulphonamide to a growing broth culture of a sulphonamide-sensitive strain; the final cessation of growth in each case presumably results from inability to initiate new protein chains with a formyl-methionine unit when the original folic acid content of the bacteria has been diluted out by residual growth.