Lyme disease: a vaccine at last?

Lyme borreliosis: messenger RNA, a promising new vaccine lead?

Valérie Choumet and her team at the Institut Pasteur have obtained promising results for a new candidate vaccine against Lyme disease.

Using messenger RNA technology - already proven for other infectious diseases - this vaccine targets the OspA protein present on the surface of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium responsible for this infection.

Encouraging results:

• Enhanced immune response: significantly higher antibody levels were observed in the animal model, compared with those generated by traditional protein vaccines
• Complete protection: the vaccine completely prevented transmission of the bacterium when bitten by a tick in the preclinical model used

With the increasing incidence of this disease in the northern hemisphere, these results pave the way for a new, potentially more effective and sustainable prevention strategy.

(video in french, English subtitles available)