Important note: Information in this article was accurate in June 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, June 12, 2000
Prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports
NewsRx -- Harvard University School of Medicine researchers reported in a major scientific publication that interleukin-2 (IL-2) plasmids enhance the immune response to HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) vaccines in rhesus monkeys.
D.H. Barouch and several investigators at Harvard initially questioned whether plasma DNA vaccines used singularly could raise effective immune responses to these viruses.
"We therefore investigated whether DNA vaccine-elicited immune responses in rhesus monkeys could be augmented by using either an IL-2/Ig fusion protein or a plasmid expressing IL-2/Ig," Barouch et al. said.
Rhesus monkeys were divided into four groups. Two groups received either sham plasmid vaccine or HIV-1 Env 89.6P and SIV mac239 Gag DNA vaccine; the other groups received these vaccines combined with either IL-2/Ig protein or IL-2/Ig plasmid.
"The monkeys that received IL-2/Ig plasmid generated 30-fold higher Env-specific antibody titer and 5-fold higher Gag-specific, tetramer-positive CD8+ T-cell levels than the monkeys receiving the DNA vaccines alone," reported Barouch et al. ("Augmentation of immune responses to HIV-1 and simian immunodeficiency virus DNA vaccines by IL-2/Ig plasmid administration in rhesus monkeys," Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2000 Apr 11;97(8):4192-7.
IL-2/Ig protein enhanced immune response also, but not to the same extent that IL-2/Ig plasmid did.
When booster doses were administered to the monkeys, the immune responses to IL-2/Ig were even greater.
Barouch et al. concluded, "These results demonstrate that the administration of IL-2/Ig plasmid can substantially augment vaccine-elicited humoral and cellular immune responses in higher primates."
The corresponding author for this study is N.L. Letvin, Harvard University, School of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
Key points reported in this study are:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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