Electroporation improves the efficacy of DNA vaccines in large animals

It is generally recognized that DNA vaccines are often less effective in large animals than in mice. One possible reason for this reduced effectiveness may be transfection efficiency and the low level of expression elicited by plasmid vectors in large animals. A possible way to improve plasmid gene expression in vivo is electroporation. To determine whether we could enhance immune responses in pigs by electroporation, we used plasmids encoding two different genes (bovine herpesvirus glycoprotein D (gD) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)) and two different electrodes, a single-needle electrode and a six-needle electrode. Electroporation significantly enhanced immune responses to both antigens. In addition, we demonstrated that co-administration of plasmids coding for two different antigens (pgD and pHBsAg) did not result in significant interference between the plasmids. We also incorporated a DNA prime/protein boost strategy to examine the effect of DNA priming with electroporation on the immune response after a protein boost.