{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,23]],"date-time":"2026-02-23T05:27:03Z","timestamp":1771824423707,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,7]],"date-time":"2023-03-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1678147200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Aids and Hepatitis, and Other Major Infectious Disease Control and Prevention","award":["2018ZX10731301-002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2018ZX10731301-002"]}]},{"name":"Aids and Hepatitis, and Other Major Infectious Disease Control and Prevention","award":["2018ZX10731301-002-005"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2018ZX10731301-002-005"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Vaccines"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Tuberculosis (TB) remains a serious global health problem. Despite the widespread use of the Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, the primary factor for the TB pandemic and deaths is adult TB, which mainly result from endogenous reactivation of latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection. Improved new TB vaccines with eligible safety and long-lasting protective efficacy remains a crucial step toward the prevention and control of TB. In this study, five immunodominant antigens, including three early secreted antigens and two latency associated antigens, were used to construct a single recombinant fusion protein (Epera013f) and a protein mixture (Epera013m). When formulated with aluminum adjuvant, the two subunit vaccines Epera013m and Epera013f were administered to BALB\/c mice. The humoral immune responses, cellular responses and MTB growth inhibiting capacity elicited after Epera013m and Epera013f immunization were analyzed. In the present study, we demonstrated that both the Epera013f and Epera013m were capable of inducing a considerable immune response and protective efficacy against H37Rv infection compared with BCG groups. In addition, Epera013f generated a more comprehensive and balanced immune status, including Th1, Th2 and innate immune response, over Epera013f and BCG. The multistage antigen complex Epera013f possesses considerable immunogenicity and protective efficacy against MTB infection ex vivo indicating its potential and promising applications in further TB vaccine development.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/vaccines11030609","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,8]],"date-time":"2023-03-08T03:29:05Z","timestamp":1678246145000},"page":"609","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["A Multistage Antigen Complex Epera013 Promotes Efficient and Comprehensive Immune Responses in BALB\/c Mice"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-1715-2157","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chengyu","family":"Qian","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, China"},{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xueting","family":"Fan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ruihuan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Bin","family":"Cao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Public Health, University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jinjie","family":"Yu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Public Health, University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiuli","family":"Luan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Guilian","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yi","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Machao","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiuqin","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8854-5704","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Danang","family":"Fang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kanglin","family":"Wan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9420-1211","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Haican","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yongliang","family":"Lou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2782","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2011.0097","article-title":"Tuberculosis vaccines: Beyond bacille Calmette-Guerin","volume":"366","author":"McShane","year":"2011","journal-title":"Philos. 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