DNA–protein immunization against the GapB and GapC proteins of a mastitis isolate of Staphylococcus aureus

One of the most economically important diseases that affect the dairy industry is bovine mastitis caused by strains of S. aureus. The development of an effective vaccine has been hampered by the antigenic diversity of the bacterium. Immunization with plasmid DNAs, encoding S. aureus antigens either as single molecule or as chimeric products containing at least two antigens, has been proposed as a novel strategy to prevent this costly disease. We continued our studies on a chimeric protein composed of the surface-located GapB and GapC proteins of S. aureus and in this work we tested the effects of DNA vaccination with plasmids encoding the individual antigens as well as the GapC/B protein with or without a boost with the recombinant proteins. The results showed that DNA vaccination alone was unable to elicit a significant humoral response and barely able to elicit a detectable cell-mediated response to the recombinant antigens. These effects were overcome by boosting with the proteins indicating that these DNA vaccines alone were not sufficient to mount an immune response against the S. aureus GapB and GapC proteins.