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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Tuberc
Sec. Immunological Basis of Tuberculosis
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/ftubr.2024.1435344
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing Tuberculosis Vaccines in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Harnessing Innovative Strategies for Effective Protection View all articles

A broader evaluation of vaccine-induced T cell immunity against tuberculosis

Provisionally accepted
Paul Ogongo Paul Ogongo *
  • University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Although Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, the only licensed vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), is the most widely used vaccine worldwide, TB is the second leading global killer from a single infectious agent responsible for over one million deaths annually. With the increasing threat of the emergence of drug-resistant TB, there is intense research toward better and more efficacious vaccines against TB. Indeed, TB vaccine research has blossomed in recent years: demonstration of sterilizing immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) challenge in non-human primates, the potential benefit of BCG revaccination in humans, and a phase IIb vaccine with ~50% efficacy against developing active disease. Consequently, several vaccines are set to begin phase 3 trials in 2024, and new candidates have entered phase 1 including mRNA-based TB vaccines. However, despite the enthusiasm, there are no known correlates of protection against TB, the antigens that induce protective immunity are incompletely defined, and the overreliance on Th1 cytokine production as an 'absolute' measure of protection is increasingly debatable. In this perspective, I highlight the recent milestones in TB Vaccine research and the remaining challenges and propose suggestions for future considerations.

    Keywords: Vaccine-induced1, T cells2, Responses3, tuberculosis4, Evaluatioin

    Received: 20 May 2024; Accepted: 27 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ogongo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Paul Ogongo, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.