0.05). The protection level of RB51 was sacrificed when the values of several variables (e.g., vaccination route, vaccine viability, and challenge pathogen strain) change. It is suggestive that it is difficult to protect against aerosol challenge. Somewhat counter-intuitively, our results indicate that intraperitoneal and subcutaneous vaccinations are much more effective to protect against aerosol Brucella challenge than intranasal vaccination. Conclusions Literature meta-analysis identified variables that significantly contribute to Brucella vaccine protection efficacy. The results obtained provide critical information for rational vaccine study design. Literature meta-analysis is generic and can be applied to analyze variables critical for vaccine protection against other infectious diseases."/>
Ontological representation of a vaccine protection assay and related variables. The variables inside boxes are ontology terms primarily from the Vaccine Ontology (VO). The italicized relation terms are the terms from the Relation Ontology (RO) and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI).