Detection of prokaryotic mRNA signifies microbial viability and promotes immunity.

ABSTRACT: Live vaccines have long been known to trigger far more vigorous immune responses than their killed counterparts. This has been attributed to the ability of live microorganisms to replicate and express specialized virulence factors that facilitate invasion and infection of their hosts. However, protective immunization can often be achieved with a single injection of live, but not dead, attenuated microorganisms stripped of their virulence factors. Pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), which are detected by the immune system, are present in both live and killed vaccines, indicating that certain poorly characterized aspects of live microorganisms, not incorporated in dead vaccines, are particularly effective at inducing protective immunity. Here we show that the mammalian innate imm

SUBMITTER: Sander LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3289942 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature