Vaccination of mice with recombinant bacille Calmette-Guérin harboring Rv1357c protects similarly to native BCG [Short communication]

Despite the availability of a Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG) vaccine, tuberculosis (TB) remains a global public health problem. In this study, we introduced the c-di-GMP phosphodiesterase gene Rv1357c, implicated in regulating mycobacterial replication within macrophages, into BCG Pasteur, and tested the resulting strain for its capacity to serve as a vaccine against TB in a murine model. Modified BCG was more phagocytosed than its parental strain, but halted bacterial replication, and protected against M. tuberculosis challenge similarly to unmodified BCG.