[CONSTRUCTION AND PROPERTIES OF THE FRANCISELLA TULARENSIS VACCINE STRAIN WITHOUT ONE COPY OF THE IGLC GENE AND...

The live vaccine based on the Francisella tularensis subsp. holarctica vaccine strain 15 NIIEG line is used in Russia against tularemia. This vaccine is highly effective, but fairly unstable. Therefore, development of stable live tularemia vaccine with minimal side effect is rather urgent. The method of allel removal in the F. tularensis vaccine strain was used to remove one copy of the iglC gene, which is required to provide intracellular production of the vaccine strain, as well as removal of the recA gene. The latter is crucial for homological recombination. pGM5 suicide vector based on pHV33 bireplicon plasmid was constructed to provide replacement of intact F. tularensis chromosome segments by modified segments. Modified chromosome segments contain F. Tularensis DNA fragment without iglC structural gene segment 545 p. b. (in pGMΔiglC plasmid), as well as DNA fragment containing no recA structural gene segment 1060 p.b. (pGMΔrecA plasmid). The constructed 15/23-1ΔrecA mutant, in contrast to the vaccine strain 15, was capable of reproducing in the macrophage-like cells J774A.1 line, whereas the efficiency of the reproduction was 8-10 times less. BALB/c mouse responded to immunization by the 15/23-1ΔrecA strain by smaller weight decrease (-2%) as compared to the strain 15 (-14%). Bacteria of the 15/23-1ΔrecA strain were virtually incapable of germinating from the BALB/c murine spleen 14 days after invasion, whereas bacteria of the strain 15 were found in the murine organs even after 21 days. The F. tularensis 15/23-1ΔrecA strain having smaller reaction ability can be used as a basis for construction of stable live safe tularemia vaccine.