Protection of Monkeys Against Experimental Shigellosis with Attenuated Vaccines

Abstract

Formal, Samuel B. (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D.C.), E. H. LaBrec, Amos Palmer, and Stanley Falkow . Protection of monkeys against experimental shigellosis with attenuated vaccines. J. Bacteriol. 90: 63–68. 1965.—Two Shigella flexneri 2a strains of reduced virulence were used as oral vaccines to protect monkeys against experimental challenge. One strain, a spontaneous mutant, had lost its ability to cause disease and was unable to penetrate the intestinal epithelium and reach the lamina propria. The other strain was a hybrid obtained by mating virulent S. flexneri 2a with Escherichia coli . This hybrid strain retained the capacity to penetrate the intestinal epithelium but was not able to maintain itself in the lamina propria. Five oral doses of the nonpenetrating mutant strain were required to render monkeys resistant to experimental challenge, but a single dose of the hybrid strain sufficed to protect the animals. There was some evidence that a degree of specificity was involved in the induced resistance, although neither vaccine evoked a consistent serum antibody or a detectable coproantibody response.