Antibodies to anthrax toxin in humans and guinea pigs and their relevance to protective immunity

Effect of aluminum hydroxide adjuvant and formaldehyde in the formulation of rPA anthrax vaccine

“…The current British anthrax vaccine, AVP, is prepared by precipitating filtered culture supernatants of the B. anthracis Sterne strain with aluminum phosphate (alum) [27]. AVP contains more LF and EF than AVA Biothrax as measured by antibody response to these components [30]. Studies have shown that AVA Biothrax provides high-level, long-lasting protection in non-human primates [31].…”

“…Aluminum adjuvants are thought to enhance the immune response by localizing the deposition of the antigen, that desorption of antigen can occur in the interstitial fluid, and that both desorbed and adsorbed antigens are processed by antigen-presenting cells [32] and preferentially stimulate the Th2 immune (humoral) response. Anthrax vaccines formulated with either aluminum hydroxide gel or aluminum phosphate adjuvants result in comparable anti-PA titers in humans and guinea pigs [33,30]. Berthold et al [34] reported a significant increase in ELISA titers to rPA in mice when their vaccine was formulated with either aluminum hydroxide gel or aluminum phosphate adjuvant compared to controls without adjuvant and that ELISA titers to rPA were comparable when either aluminum hydroxide gel or aluminum phosphate adjuvants were used to formulate the rPA vaccine.…”

Serology and anthrax in humans, livestock and Etosha National Park wildlife

“…The first application of the enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to anthrax serology also utilized the Dowex-I-XI-purified PA [9] and EIA was shown to be significantly more sensitive than IMHA using this PA [9] or that purified to a higher degree through hydroxylapatite [10]. Subsequently.…”

“…when it became possible to obtain all three anthrax toxin components, PA, LF (lethal factor) and EF (oedema factor) in highly purified form [11]. EIA was used to determine the antibody titres to all three in sera from a number of human anthrax patients in Zimbabwe [10,12,13]. EIA for anti-PA antibodies was also used to confirm the retrospective diagnosis of anthrax in an epidemic in Switzerland [14].…”

“…Serological detection of antibody, particularly by gel diffusion in former days, and by EIA since about 1985, has been a fundamental tool in examining the function of existing human and animal anthrax vaccines and, thereby, in the development of putative new alternatives [10,12,[21][22][23][24][25]. EIA or other serological systems such as immunofluorescence have also been applied to detection of anthrax toxin or other allegedly specific antigens in studies of pathogenesis [26] and spore structure [27], or new approaches to diagnosis [28.…”