Potential live vaccines for HIV

Potential live vaccines for HIV were developed using an Lpp-OmpA system to target an HIV antigen, reverse transcriptase, or an immunodominant epitope of this enzyme, to the outer membrane of an attenuated strain of Salmonella SL3261. These live vaccines were administered orally to mice, and fecal IgA and helper T cell responses were measured. Results indicated a fecal IgA response specific to HIV reverse transcriptase, as well as a reverse transcriptase-specific helper T cell response, as measured by proliferation assays. Additionally, tests with the epitope vaccines showed a selective cytotoxic CD8 T cell response. These results suggest that this method of antigen targeting to the outer membrane of attenuated bacterial vectors is very promising not only for HIV vaccine development, but also for antigens from other viral or bacterial pathogens, which could be inserted into the Lpp-OmpA protein construct, to elicit mucosal IgA and T cell responses.