Vaccination with the Live Attenuated Francisella novicida Mutant FTN0109 Protects against Pulmonary Tularemia
Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53369#.VMBjJSzQrzE Author(s) Aimee L. Cunningham 1,2 , M. Neal Guentzel 1 , Jieh-Juen Yu 1 , Nikita Trivedi 1 , Karl E. Klose 1 , James P. Chambers 1 , Bernard P. Arulanandam 1* Affiliation(s) 1 South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Disease and Center for Excellence in Infection Genomics, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA . 2 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA . ABSTRACT Francisella tularensis is considered a potential bioterrorism agent due to its low infectious dose, high mortality rate, and ability to be spread via the aerosol route. We characterized the F. tularensis subspecies novicida mutant strain FTN0109 as a potential vaccine candidate against tularemia. This strain, which lacks an outer membrane lipoprotein, is attenua...