Researchers Using DNA Adenine Methylase Vaccine See Cross Protection.(Brief Article)

2001 DEC 26 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- New medical research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, represents a significant step toward preventing infections through the development of vaccines that elicit protection against several different disease-causing strains.

The work, by UCSB biologists Douglas M. Heithoff, Steve Julio, David A. Low, Robert L. Sinsheimer, and Michael J. Mahan, is an extension of earlier breakthrough research in which a strain of Salmonella was forced, through a new DNA technology, to "show its hand," thus allowing the organism to defend against it. The technology used in this vaccine is called DNA adenine methylase, or "Dam," and was discovered by Mahan's team in 1999.

The new developments are described in articles in the November and December 2001 issues of the journal Infection and Immunity.

"One of the main obstacles of vaccine development is that there are often many strains that can cause disease in individuals vaccinated against a single strain or a small set of strains," said Mahan. "This is the principle reason why different flu vaccines need to be administered every year, and why disease can occur in vaccinated individuals. This obstacle is a big problem for Salmonella, which has more than 2,500 pathogenic strains. Using Dam technology, we have developed a Salmonella vaccine that is cross-protective to different salmonella strains."

He said that the development of cross-protective vaccines is paramount to the defense against biowarfare agents wherein pathogenic strains may have been "weaponized" by selecting for strains that overcome the immunity in ...