DNA immunization enhances immune response to fowlpox-based SIVmac vaccine.

2003 OCT 8 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Prior DNA immunization enhances immune response to dominant and subdominant viral epitopes induced by a fowlpox-based SIVmac vaccine in long-term slow-progressor macaques infected with SIVmac251.

According to recent research published in the journal Virology, "A therapeutic vaccine for individuals infected with HIV-1 and treated with antiretroviral therapy (ART) should be able to replenish virus-specific CD4+ T-cells and broaden the virus-specific CD8+ T-cell response in order to maintain CD8+ T-cell function and minimize viral immune escape after ART cessation."

"Because a combination of DNA and recombinant poxvirus vaccine modalities induces high levels of virus-specific CD4+ T-cell response and broadens the cytolytic activity in naive macaques, we investigated whether the same results could be obtained in SIVmac251-infected macaques," stated Antonia Radaelli at the National Cancer Institute in the United States and collaborators in the United States, Italy, and Poland. "The macaques studied here were long-term nonprogressors that naturally contained viremia but were nevertheless treated with a combination of antiviral drugs to assess more carefully the effect of vaccination in the context of ART."

"The combination of a DNA expressing the gag and pol genes (DNA-SIV-gp) of SIVmac239 followed by a recombinant fowlpox expressing the same SIVmac genes (FP-SIV-gp) was significantly more immunogenic than two immunizations of ...