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Tuberculosis remains globally one of the major diseases leading to high mortality rates, with serious implications for public health and economic development. Therefore, tuberculosis prevention and control is crucial for global health and socio-economic stability. The development of effective preventive vaccines remains an urgent task in the fight against tuberculosis. Methods: The Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen PPE18 was fused to Zera, and Bacmid was extracted and transfected into Sf9, which was purified and characterized for the formation of nanoparticle protein bodies. BALB\/c mice and calves were immunized, and the immunogenicity of the nanoparticle vaccine was assessed by serum antibodies and splenic lymphocytes. Results: Zera-71CA-mCherry can be expressed in Sf9 cells, forming 0.5\u20131.2 \u03bcm protein bodies. Excising the mCherry sequence, Zera-71CA\/Zera-PPE18 candidate nanoparticle-immunized mice were able to elicit serum antibody levels and the proliferation of splenic lymphocytes, and immunized calves were determined to have high levels of serum antibody levels, and IFN-\u03b3 and TNF-\u03b1 levels. Conclusions: The results indicated that Zera-71CA\/Zera-PPE18 recombinant nanoparticles had good immunogenicity as a subunit vaccine in both BALB\/c mice and calves and are potential candidates for further development as effective subunit vaccines.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/vaccines13070671","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,24]],"date-time":"2025-06-24T08:50:57Z","timestamp":1750755057000},"page":"671","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Mycobacterium tuberculosis PPE18 Protein Bodies in Insect Cells: A Candidate Tuberculosis Vaccine"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Pu","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Gang","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4515-2484","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yurong","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"People\u2019s Hospital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750002, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lingling","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiaoxia","family":"Niu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sinong","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Weifeng","family":"Gao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0672-948X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhiwei","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Entomological Biopharmaceutical R&D, College of Pharmacy, Dali University, Dali 671003, China"},{"name":"Center for Public Health Research, Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2036-9166","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yong","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Life Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Protection and Utilization of Special Biological Resources in Western China, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gong, W., Pan, C., Cheng, P., Wang, J., Zhao, G., and Wu, X. 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