Scientist Cristina Latasa, PhD in Biology, was appointed academician of the Peruvian Academy of Veterinary Sciences, in an act that took place on October 23rd, 2018 in Lima (Peru). After the incorporation ceremony, the new academic presented her master lecture, under the title: “Development of veterinary vaccines: traditional methods and new biotechnological approaches”.

PhD. Latasa started her presentation with a review of veterinary vaccines, emphasizing that conventional ones, in their different types (live attenuated, inactivated and toxoids) “have been very successful in controlling and eradicating diseases both human and animals (smallpox, rabies, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or Classical Swine Fever (CSF) “.

Despite its great effectiveness and its contribution to the improvement of health and animal production, Latasa noted that “there are still important limitations because there are no vaccines available for all diseases, such as African swine fever; some formulations may present limitations in terms of safety and stability and the vast majority does not allow discrimination between animals vaccinated from infected-carriers (DIVA strategy).

Then, her lecture developed the “use of an attenuated strain of salmonella as a vaccine vector for the expression of heterologous antigens of veterinary interest” and referred to an in vivo study on attenuation and protection, which showed that “a deficient strain in a route of signaling and a sigma regulator is highly attenuated and safe” and that “is able to confer protection against a challenge of S. Enteritis (Solano et al, 2009; Latasa et al, 2012)

In addition to exposing some examples of the expression of xenoantigens from the chromosome of several microbial species, the biologist and biochemistry made reference to a second technological possibility for the design of new generation vaccines that consists in the “modification of natural plasmids for the expression of heterologous antigens” and specified that advances in the biotechnology sector will be key when it comes to offering new multivalent vaccine solutions.

Finally, she added: “Vaccination must be accompanied by a good health and physiological status of the animals. In this context, the development of new adjuvants and the administration of pronutrients with immunomodulatory capacity can contribute in a decisive way to the better effectiveness of veterinary vaccines”.

References

Latasa C, Echeverz M, Garcia B, et al. Evaluation of a Salmonella Strain Lacking the Secondary Messenger C-di-GMP and RpoS as a Live Oral Vaccine. PLoS One. 2016; 11 (8): e0161216. Published 2016 Aug 18. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0161216

Solano C, García B, Latasa C, et al. Genetic reductionist approach for dissecting individual roles of GGDEF proteins within the c-di-GMP signaling network in Salmonella. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009; 106 (19): 7997-8002.