ePoster Presentation 49th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology 2021

The development of an effective vaccine to protect against female genital tract chlamydial infections (#264)

Logan K Trim 1 , Darren Leahy 1 , Jonathan Harris 1 , Taylor Poston 2 , Nilu Goonetilleke 2 , Alison Carey 1 , Toni Darville 2 , Ken Beagley 1
  1. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
  2. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States of America

Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection worldwide and is responsible for a wide range of reproductive morbidities. Vaccines are the most promising prospect for reducing the incidence of infection and pathology. Chlamydial vaccinology poses unique problems with over 70 years of vaccine research only yielding a single Phase 1 clinical trial. Here, we use an innovative vaccine development pipeline, based on reverse-vaccinology methodologies, to define novel chlamydial antigens in combination with established adjuvant technologies to accelerate translation into human clinical trials. To this end, we have identified immunodominant and immunoprevalent antigens in humans that are associated with protection against infection or reproductive pathology. Here, we define the safety, immunogenicity, and protective efficacy of these novel antigens in our established mouse model of chlamydial infection.