Mycobacterial Membrane Vesicles Administered Systemically in Mice Induce a Protective Immune Response to Surface Compartments of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

This work offers a new vaccine approach against tuberculosis using mycobacterial MV. Mycobacterium MV are a naturally released product combining immunogenic antigens in the context of a lipid structure. The fact that MV do not need adjuvants and elicit protection comparable to that elicited by the BCG vaccine encourages vaccine approaches that combine protein antigens and lipids. Consequently, mycobacterium MV establish a new type of vaccine formulation.