Polysaccharide vaccine for staphylococcal infections
AssigneeThe Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc.
InventorsGerald B. Pier, Julia Y. Wang, David McKenney
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Abstract
The invention relates to compositions of the capsular polysaccharide/adhesin (PS/A) of staphylococci. The PS/A may be isolated or synthesized and includes various modifications to the structure of native PS/A based on the chemical characterization of PS/A. The invention also relates to the use of the PS/A as a vaccine for inducing active immunity to infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus, S. epidermidis, other related coagulase-negative staphylococci and organisms carrying the ica (intracellular adhesin) locus, and to the use of antibodies directed to PS/A for inducing passive immunity to the same class of infections.
Claims11
An isolated pure staphylococcal capsular polysaccharide/adhesin antigen (PS/A) having a molecular weight of greater than 100,000 daltons wherein the staphylococcal PS/A is prepared according to a process comprising:
- preparing an impure PS/A from a staphylococcal culture;
- incubating the impure PS/A from said staphylococcal culture with a strong base or a strong acid to produce a semi-pure PS/A preparation;
- neutralizing the semi-pure PS/A preparation with an acid or base;
- precipitating the neutralized semi-pure PS/A preparation with an alcohol followed by molecular sieve chromatography and digestion with a proteinase;
- incubation of the proteinase-digested PS/A preparation with a base followed by neutralization with an acid;
- incubation of the neutralized proteinase-digested PS/A preparation with hydrofluoric acid followed by neutralization with NaOH and precipitation with an alcohol to produce the isolated pure PS/A, wherein the isolated pure PS/A is greater than 92% free of contaminants and contains less than 10% galactose.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.