Global Gene Transcriptome Analysis in Vaccinated Cattle Revealed a Dominant Role of IL-22 for Protection against Bovine Tuberculosis

Abstract

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic disease of cattle caused by Mycobacterium bovis, a member of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex group of bacteria. Vaccination of cattle might offer a long-term solution for controlling the disease and priority has been given to the development of a cattle vaccine against bTB. Identification of biomarkers in tuberculosis research remains elusive and the goal is to identify host correlates of protection. We hypothesized that by studying global gene expression we could identify in vitro predictors of protection that could help to facilitate vaccine development. Calves were vaccinated with BCG or with a heterologous BCG prime adenovirally vectored subunit boosting protocol. Protective efficacy was determined after M. bovis challenge. RNA was prepared from PPD-stimulated PBMC prepared from vaccinated-protected, vaccinated-unprotected and unvaccinated control cattle prior to M. bovis challenge and global gene expression determined by RNA-seq. 668 genes were differentially expressed in vaccinated-protected cattle compared with vaccinated-unprotected and unvaccinated control cattle. Cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction was the most significant pathway related to this dataset with IL-22 expression identified as the dominant surrogate of protection besides INF-γ. Finally, the expression of these candidate genes identified by RNA-seq was evaluated by RT-qPCR in an independent set of PBMC samples from BCG vaccinated and unvaccinated calves. This experiment confirmed the importance of IL-22 as predictor of vaccine efficacy.

Author Summary

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic disease of cattle caused by Mycobacterium bovis, a member of a complex group of pathogens that also includes the bacterium causing human tuberculosis, M. tuberculosis. Vaccination of cattle might offer a long-term solution for controlling the disease and priority has been given to the development of a cattle vaccine against bTB. In addition to the relevance for the veterinary field, cattle can also serve as useful pre-clinical model for the development of human vaccines. Identification of biomarkers in tuberculosis research remains elusive and the goal of this study was to identify host markers that allow the prediction of vaccine success. In this experiment, the outcome of vaccination was measured against relevant endpoints based on disease severity. Our results, generated using the state-of-the-art methodology of transcriptome sequencing defined a dominant role of the cytokine IL-22 for predicting vaccine success. We therefore identified a predictive biomarker that can be used in future experiments and also highlighted the role of T cells producing this cytokine in protective immunity.