HPV virus-like particle vaccine successfully stimulates specific humoral and cellular immune responses.(Brief Article)

2002 SEP 25 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Maria G. Essig, MS, ELS, senior medical writer - A vaccine composed of a particle designed to simulate a human papillomavirus (HPV) particle stimulated specific lymphocyte and antibody responses in women, according to a report in the Journal of Virology.

Rebecca T. Emeny and colleagues at the University of New Mexico and Merck Research Laboratories compared immune responses of women to an HPV-11 virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine and placebo. The women were seronegative for HPV-11 antibodies at the beginning of the study.

The subjects received either an intramuscular injection of the vaccine or placebo at 0, 2, and 6 months, with approximately half of the women receiving a fourth injection at month 12 (Priming of human papillomavirus type 11-specific humoral and cellular immune responses in college-aged women with a virus-like particle vaccine. Journal of Virology, 2002;76(15):7832-7842).

All of the vaccinated subjects possessed HPV-11 VLP-specific antibodies by month 1 and a positive HPV-11 VLP-specific cellular response by month 3. No evidence was found for HPV-11 VLP-specific humoral or cellular responses in the control subjects.

For the first 12 months of the study, women in the vaccinated group had an average lymphoproliferative stimulation index (SI) 7.6 times greater than the SI found in the placebo subjects.

"The cellular immune responses generated by VLP immunization were both Th1 and Th2, since peripheral blood mononuclear cells from vaccinees, but not placebo recipients, secreted interleukin 2 (IL-2), IL-5, and ...