Tuberculosis has great public health impact with high rates of mortality and the only prophylactic measure for
it is the
Mycobacterium bovis
bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. The present study evaluated the release of
cytokines [interleukin (IL)-1, tumour necrosis factor and IL-6] and chemokines [macrophage inflammatory protein
(MIP)-1α and MIP-1β] by THP-1 derived macrophages infected with BCG vaccine obtained by growing mycobacteria
in Viscondessa de Moraes Institute medium medium (oral) or Sauton medium (intradermic) to compare the effects
of live and heat-killed (HK) mycobacteria. Because BCG has been reported to lose viability during the lyophilisation
process and during storage, we examined whether exposing BCG to different temperatures also triggers differences
in the expression of some important cytokines and chemokines of the immune response. Interestingly, we observed
that HK mycobacteria stimulated cytokine and chemokine production in a different pattern from that observed with
live mycobacteria.
