United States: An experimental vaccine has been presented as a possible solution in preventing chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection.
Immunized lab mice were able to quickly help their bodies eliminate chlamydia and did not get as sick as mice that were not vaccinated, researchers said on November 11 in the journal npj Vaccines.
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Chlamydia whole-cell bacteria that have been irradiated are used in the development of the vaccine, as noted by the study authors.
Although the bacteria die from radiation, they can trigger an immune response because they have been wrapped in a strong antioxidant, according to the study.
The antioxidant preserves the surface proteins required for the production of an immune response while neutralizing the bacteria.
The antioxidant protection helped develop a whole-cell chlamydia vaccine that raised antibodies in mice more than 16-fold.
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According to George Liechti, the lead researcher and a professor with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Department of Microbiology and Immunology in Bethesda, “All of these findings just make sense to me,” US News reported.
“If you want an effective whole-cell chlamydia vaccine, then you should probably try not to cook, zap, or otherwise damage the surface antigens that it relies on,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the vaccines produced without the antioxidant elicited little or average antibodies. About 1.6 million cases of chlamydia were reported in 2022, as researchers noted in the background information section.
Nearly all the cases were among females between the age of 15-24 years. It remains that women with untreated chlamydia have a higher risk of developing infertility due to pelvic inflammatory disease, says the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chlamydia vaccine efforts date back to nearly 80 years ago, as the researchers noted in the university’s news release. The use of the chlamydia vaccine in human subjects during field trials established in the 1960s showed that the whole-cell chlamydia vaccine could, in fact, facilitate the infection of the STD in an individual.
Thus, attempts at developing a whole-cell vaccine were mostly given up. However, as scientists learned, exposure to chemicals, boiling, radiation, or ultraviolet light, which is normally used for the elimination of chlamydia bacteria in preparing the virus, affects the surface of cells, which decreases the chances that they will act as antigens.