Vaccine for prophylaxis or treatment of an allergen-driven airway pathology
The present invention relates to a live attenuated Bordetella pertussis vaccine which is deficient for tracheal cytotoxin (TCT), pertussis toxin (PTX), and dermonecrotic toxin (DNT) for prophylaxis or treatment of an allergen-driven airway pathology.
1. A method of reducing allergen-driven lung eosinophilia in a subject with asthma, the method comprising the step of infecting the subject's respiratory tract with a live attenuated Bordetella pertussis strain which is deficient in tracheal cytotoxin (TCT), pertussis toxin (PTX), and dermonecrotic toxin (DNT).
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the strain comprises a mutated pertussis toxin (ptx) gene, a deleted or mutated dermonecrotic (dnt) gene, and a heterologous ampG gene.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the heterologous ampG gene is an E. coli ampG gene that replaces the wild-type Bordetella strain ampG gene.
4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the mutation of the ptx gene comprises a substitution of an amino acid involved in substrate binding and/or an amino acid involved in catalysis.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the substitution of the amino acid involved in substrate binding comprises R9K and the substitution of the amino acid involved in catalysis comprises E129G.
6. The method of claim 2 , wherein the heterologous ampG gene is the only heterologous gene in the strain.