Advantages of rectal vaccination against HIV described.

2004 JAN 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- AIDS immunization is still to be improved. Russian scientists suggest that rectal vaccination could be the most effective prevention of HIV transmission. The work is supported by the Interdepartmental Research and Technical Program "Vaccines of New Generation and Medical Diagnostic Systems of the Future."

Researchers all over the world strive to obtain a vaccine preventing AIDS. Most promising are DNA vaccines, which contain genes of human immunodeficiency virus. These genes function within the human body and synthesize certain viral proteins harmless to human health, and the immune system produces antibodies to those proteins and becomes resistible to a whole virus in case if the latter appears.

The DNA vaccine is usually prescribed per-orally. One needs to eat quite a lot of DNA, which is very expensive, to induce an adequate immune response. Intramuscular injections can cause only a very weak and short-term response. Hence, scientists search for another route of DNA-vaccination that would require a low dose and provide a high specific immune response.

Karpenko and his colleagues from the Research Institute of Biological Engineering of the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vektor" (village Kol'tsovo in the Novosibirsk Region) and the Biological Medicine Center (St. Petersburg) believe that rectal vaccination is superior to the other routes.

DNA vaccine is packed into salmonella cells. Certain weakened strains of this bacterium are not dangerous for human health, but induce the generation of an additional ...