Dendritic Cell Activity Driven by Recombinant Mycobacterium bovis BCG Producing Human IL-18, in Healthy BCG Vaccinated Adults

Figure 1

Construction of pENhIL-18 used to produce and secrete hIL-18 by rBCGhIL-18. White arrows and represent the kanamycin and ampicillin resistance genes, respectively. ColE1 represents the origin of replication from E.coli (hatched boxes), and oriM represents the mycobacterial origin of replication (hatched arrows). The expression cassette contains the BCG hsp60 promoter, the ribosome-binding site, and the hsp60 initiating codon represented by the black box. The M. tuberculosis alpha-antigen signal peptide coding sequence is represented by the white box, whereas the IL-18 coding sequence is shown in black. The grey boxes indicate open reading frames of the mycobacterial plasmid, necessary for replication in BCG.