Important note: Information in this article was accurate in December 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, December 24 & 31, 2001
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer
NewsRx -- Cytokines and growth factors can improve the effectiveness of DNA HIV vaccines although they have little effect on the type of induced immune responses, researchers in the United States say.
"The effects of genetic adjuvants on humoral and cell-mediated immunity to two human immunodeficiency virus antigens, Env and Nef, have been examined in mice," according to Anne C. Moore and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health's Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Adjuvants could have a positive impact on vaccine efficacy but only in degree and not in kind, Moore and coworkers found.
They compared murine immune responses with vaccines based on genes coding for the HIV proteins Env and Nef. While Nef-based vaccines induced strong antibody responses aided by HIV specific gamma interferon (IFN-(gamma)), Env-based vaccines produced potent cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) activity but weak humoral responses, they said.
A number of genes coding for cytokines and hematopoietic growth factors were studied as possible adjuvants for Env and Nef vaccines. Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor increased CTL activity and IFN-(gamma) output in response to Env, study data showed, while interleukin-12 with Flt3 ligand enhanced immunoglobulin G antibody responses and IFN-(gamma) production after treatment with Nef-based vaccines.
However, these adjuvants did little to improve CTL responses to Nef or humoral responses to Env (Effects of antigen and genetic adjuvants on immune responses to human immunodeficiency virus DNA vaccines in mice, Journal of Virology, January 2002;76(1):243-250).
"These findings suggest that intrinsic properties of the antigen determine the character of immune reactivity for this method of immunization," Moore and coauthors concluded, "and that specific combination of innate and adaptive immune cytokine genes can increase the magnitude of the response to DNA vaccines."
The corresponding author for this report is Gary J. Nabel, Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 40 Convent Dr., Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. E-mail: gnabel@nih.gov.
A search at www.NewsRx.net using the term "AIDS and HIV vaccine" yielded 121 articles in 17 specialized reports.
Key points reported in this study include:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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