ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Parasitology
This article is part of the Research TopicPhylogenetic insights into apicomplexan parasites of veterinary and wild life importance: Advancing sustainable livestock managementView all 3 articles
Evaluation of the immune protective of multi-antigenic DNA vaccine of TgROP6 and TgMIC12 against Toxoplasma gondii infectionEvaluation of immune protection of a multi-antigenic DNA vaccine encoding TgROP6 and TgMIC12 against Toxoplasma gondii infection
Provisionally accepted
- 1The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- 2Ningbo Zhenhai People's Hospital, Ningbo, China
- 3Department of Neurosurgery, Ningbo Key Laboratory of Nervous System and Brain Function, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315010, China, Ningbo, China
- 4Ningbo University Health Science Center, Ningbo, China
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Toxoplasma gondii infection causes severe congenital disease and abortion in humans and animals. This study evaluated a novel multivalent DNA vaccine targeting the dense granule proteins ROP6, and MIC12 for protection against acute (RH strain) and chronic (PRU strain) toxoplasmosis in mouse models. Eukaryotic plasmids encoding pVAX-ROP6 and pVAX-MIC12 were constructed, and mice were immunized with either single or combined formulations. Vaccination elicited a robust Th1-biased immune response, characterized by elevated IgG2a/IgG1 ratios, enhanced cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity, increased CD4+ and CD8+ T cell populations, and elevated production of IFN-γ, IL-12, and IL-2. The dual vaccine demonstrated superior efficacy, significantly prolonging survival following lethal RH challenge (compared to uniform mortality in controls by day 6) and reducing PRU brain cyst burden by 56.6%, outperforming single-gene formulations. Although these results establish pVAX-ROP6/MIC12 as promising vaccine candidates, protection remained partial, highlighting the need for further optimization. Overall, this study underscores the potential of bivalent DNA vaccines to induce broad protective immunity against toxoplasmosis, supporting their continued development for clinical and veterinary use.We constructed eukaryotic plasmids (pVAX-ROP6, and GRA12) and DNA immunized mice with single-, or dual-formulations. Vaccination elicited robust Th1-biased immunity, characterized by elevated IgG2a/IgG1 ratios, enhanced CTL activity, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and increased IFN-γ, IL-12 and IL-2 production. The dual vaccine demonstrated superior efficacy, conferring prolonged survival time against lethal RH challenge (vs. uniform mortality in controls by day 6) and a 56.6% reduction in PRU brain cysts, outperforming mono-formulations. These results establish pVAX-ROP6/MIC12 as promising vaccine candidates and highlight the advantage of multivalent DNA vaccines in inducing comprehensive protection against toxoplasmosis, supporting their further development for clinical and veterinary applications.
Keywords: Toxoplasma gondii, Toxoplasmosis, DNA vaccine, TgROP6, TgMIC12
Received: 28 Jul 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bohuai, Bi, Wang, Sun, Chen and Mu. 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: Jingqi Mu, 2311140011@nbu.edu.cn
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