An invariant Trypanosoma vivax vaccine antigen induces protective immunity

Trypanosomes are protozoan parasites that cause infectious diseases, including African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in humans and nagana in economically important livestock 1 , 2 . An effective vaccine against trypanosomes would be an important control tool, but the parasite has evolved sophisticated immunoprotective mechanisms—including antigenic variation 3 —that present an apparently insurmountable barrier to vaccination. Here we show, using a systematic genome-led vaccinology approach and a mouse model of Trypanosoma vivax infection 4 , that protective invariant subunit vaccine antigens can be identified. Vaccination with a single recombinant protein comprising the extracellular region of a conserved cell-surface protein that is localized to the flagellum membrane (which we term ‘invariant flagellum antigen from T. vivax ’) induced long-lasting protection. Immunity was passively transferred with immune serum, and recombinant monoclonal antibodies to this protein could induce sterile protection and revealed several mechanisms of antibody-mediated immunity, including a major role for complement. Our discovery identifies a vaccine candidate for an important parasitic disease that has constrained socioeconomic development in countries in sub-Saharan Africa 5 , and provides evidence that highly protective vaccines against trypanosome infections can be achieved.