Clostridium perfringens epsilon prototoxin mutant rpETXY30A/Y71A/H106P/Y196A as a vaccine candidate against enterotoxemia

Abstract

Epsilon toxin (ETX) is secreted by Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens)as a relatively inactive prototoxin (pETX), which is enzymatically activated to ETX by removing carboxy-terminal and amino-terminal peptides. Genetically engineered ETX mutants have been shown to function as potential vaccine candidates in the prevention of the enterotoxemia caused by C. perfringens. In the present study, two recombinant site-directed mutants of pETX, rpETX_{Y30A/Y71A/H106P/Y196A} (rpETX_m41) and rpETX_{Y30A/H106P/Y196A/F199E} (rpETX_m42), were synthesized by mutating four essential amino acid residues (Tyr30, Tyr71, His106, Tyr196 or Phe199). Compared to recombinant pETX (rpETX), both rpETX_m41 and rpETX_m42 lacked the detectable toxicity in MDCK cells and mice, which suggested that both rpETX_m41 and rpETX_m42 are sufficiently safe to be vaccine candidates. Despite the fact that rpETX_m41 and rpETX_m42 were reactogenic with polyclonal antibodies against crude ETX, both single- and double-dose vaccination (V_s and V_d, respectively) of rpETX_m41 induced a higher level of IgG titer and protection in mice than that of rpETX_m42. Therefore, we selected rpETX_m41 for the further study. Sheep received V_s of 150 μg rpETX_m41 developed significant levels of toxin-neutralizing antibodies persisting for at least 6 months, which conferred protection against crude ETX challenge without microscopic lesions. These data suggest that genetically detoxified rpETX_{Y30A/Y71A/H106P/Y196A} could form the basis of a next-generation enterotoxemia vaccine.

Keywords: Antigenicity; Clostridium perfringens ETX; Detoxified.