Successful vaccines against serogroup A and C meningococcal strains have been developed, but current serogroup B vaccines provide protection against only a limited range of strains. The ideal meningococcal vaccine would provide cross-reactive immunity against the variety of strains that may be encountered in any community, but it is unclear whether the meningococcus possesses immune targets that have the necessary level of cross-reactivity. We have generated a phoP mutant of the meningococcus by allele exchange. PhoP is a component of a two-component regulatory system which in other bacteria is an important regulator of virulence gene expression. Inactivation of the PhoP-PhoQ system in Salmonella leads to avirulence, and phoP mutants have been shown to confer protection against virulent challenge. These mutants have been examined as potential live attenuated vaccines. We here show that a phoP mutant of the meningococcus is avirulent in a mouse model of infection. Moreover, infection of mice with the phoP mutant stimulated a bactericidal immune response that not only killed the infecting strain but also showed cross-reactive bactericidal activity against a range of strains with different serogroup, serotype, and serosubtyping antigens. Sera from the mutant-infected mice contained immunoglobulin G that bound to the surface of a range of meningococcal strains and mediated opsonophagocytosis of meningococci by human phagocytic cells. The meningococcal phoP mutant is thus a candidate live, attenuated vaccine strain and may also be used to identify cross-reactive protective antigens in the meningococcus.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 31 October 2023.
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#7,295,360
of 33,729,289 outputs
Outputs from Infection and Immunity
#3,677
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Outputs of similar age
#29,016
of 196,072 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Infection and Immunity
#29
of 115 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,729,289 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 16,040 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 196,072 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 115 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.
