Oral vaccination with cholera toxin helps counteract age-associated obesity

Reviewed by Kate Anderton, B.Sc. (Editor)Nov 19 2019

Here the research team tested a safe and well-established microbe-based immune adjuvant to restore immune homeostasis and counteract inflammation-associated obesity in animal models.

Taken together, they concluded that oral vaccination with cholera toxin B helps stimulate health-protective immune responses that counteract age-associated obesity.

Dr. Susan E. Erdman from the Division of Comparative Medicine, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, United States said, "The global burden of chronic inflammatory diseases is increasing at alarming rates."

The continuous rise of obesity, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, infertility, allergy and autoimmunity, cancer, and central nervous system dysfunctions, including anxiety and autism, appears to link with modernized lifestyle but remains inexplicable.

Underlying systemic immune imbalances linked with bacteria residing in the gut have been proposed as a probable cause of obesity.

In this context, obesity is one of many chronic inflammatory diseases associated with modern living.

Important effects of gut microbiota in mammalian physiology, including metabolism and CNS functions, place gut microbe-immune cell interactions in the hypothetical center of chronic inflammatory disorders such as obesity.

In this regard, postbiotic gut bacterial fractions used for oral immunizations have been found to stabilize the immune system and counteract destructive inflammatory responses later in life in both humans and animals.

Immune adjuvant properties of cholera-toxin, make it an attractive tool for induction of tolerance that stabilizes the immune system.

The Erdman research team concluded:

Indeed, systemic immune imbalances related to failure of tolerance have been proposed as a cause of extra-intestinal cancer linked with bacteria residing in the gut.

It remains to be seen whether this gut immune-centric strategy broadly translates to successes in the clinic; however, the versatility of ct B to manipulate immune responses make this protein a promising adjuvant for vaccine development to combat a growing Westernized public health crisis."