Intestinal antibody to Vibrio cholerae in immunised mice.

The immune response of the mouse to priming and booster doses of V. cholerae was studied to establish whether serum antibody could be used as a correlate of local immunity. Serum antibody titres following oral boosting of orally-primed animals were shown to reflect the state of local intestinal immunity. This was not the case when the same oral booster dose was given to parenterally-primed animals. These results were discussed in relation to the human endemic situation. The highest titres of intestinal protective antibodies were found following combination of the oral and parenteral routes of immunisation. Various killed or extracted preparations of V. cholerae were used as oral vaccines to test their ability to induce protective antibodies in the gut. Only Boivin antigen was capable of inducing as good an intestinal antibody response as would the living organism.