Substrate Binding Protein SBP2 of a Putative ABC Transporter as a Novel Vaccine Antigen of Moraxella catarrhalis

Abstract

ABSTRACTMoraxella catarrhalisis a common respiratory tract pathogen that causes otitis media in children and infections in adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Since the introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccines with/without protein D of nontypeableHaemophilus influenzae,M. catarrhalishas become a high-priority pathogen in otitis media. For the development of antibacterial vaccines and therapies, substrate binding proteins of ATP-binding cassette transporters are important targets. In this study, we identified and characterized a substrate binding protein, SBP2, ofM. catarrhalis. Among 30 clinical isolates tested, thesbp2gene sequence was highly conserved. In 2 different analyses (whole-cell enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and flow cytometry), polyclonal antibodies raised to recombinant SBP2 demonstrated that SBP2 expresses epitopes on the bacterial surface of the wild type but not thesbp2mutant. Mice immunized with recombinant SBP2 showed significantly enhanced clearance ofM. catarrhalisfrom the lung compared to that in the control group at both 25-μg and 50-μg doses (P< 0.001). We conclude that SBP2 is a novel, attractive candidate as a vaccine antigen againstM. catarrhalis.