Vaccination of mice with baculovirus-infected insect cells expressing antigenic proteins

Kimberly R Jordan1, Fran Crawford2,3, John W Kappler1,2,3

  • 1University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado.

Methods to induce antigen-specific immune responses in mice using insect cells infected with recombinant baculoviruses are described in this unit. Although this vaccine strategy has been used to generate both antibody and T cell responses, it has been more thoroughly characterized for the peptide-specific cytotoxic T cell responses. Nonspecific responses to the vaccine vehicle are controlled for by vaccinating with insect cells infected with baculoviruses encoding irrelevant antigens or no antigen. The baculovirus-infected insect cells alone are an effective immune adjuvant to elicit antigen-specific T cells. Overall, immune responses generated using this approach are similar to those generated by more conventional vaccine strategies.

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