[Experimental approaches to designing vaccines against tuberculous infection reactivation].

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in adults is considered to be a reactivation disease that develops after a long period of latent infection. The need for vaccines against TB reactivation is urgent; however, such vaccines are not available yet. The authors have developed an experimental model of TB reactivation in inbred mice of TB-susceptible strain I/St and attempted to vaccinate these animals in the preinfection (prophylactic) and postinfection (therapeutic) manner against the reactivation. Therapeutic vaccination with BCG resulted in an exacerbation of the disease, presumably, due to Koch's phenomenon. Prophylactic vaccination with proteins of the Rpf family induced IFN-gamma production by CD4+ T cells and slightly decreased mycobacterial multiplication in the organs. However, neither the vaccination protocol prevented infection reactivation, suggesting that heterologous prime-boost approaches should be further investigated in our model.