[DNA vaccines against alphaherpesvirus infections]

DNA vaccines offer a number of unique and favorable features that distinguish them from conventional live attenuated, killed whole, or subunit vaccines. DNA vaccine has been used to elicit humoral and cellular immune responses against viruses, bacteria, parasites and tumors in various animals. In particular, DNA vaccine can induce cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which play an important role in protection against alphaherpesvirus infections. Therefore DNA vaccine is likely to be a new and better approach to protect human and animals from alphaherpesvirus infections. In this paper, current knowledge on DNA vaccines against alphaherpesvirus infections is summarized.