Attenuated D2 16681-PDK53 vaccine: defining humoral and cell-mediated immunity

Dengue viruses cause 50-100 million cases of acute febrile disease every year, including more than 500000 reported cases of the severe forms of the disease-dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS). Attempts to create conventional vaccines have been hampered by the lack of suitable experimental models, the need to provide protection against all four serotypes simultaneously and the possible involvement of virus-specific immune responses in severe disease. Live attenuated D2 16681-PDK53 vaccine was first developed from Mahidol University, Thailand. This vaccine induced both humoral and cell-mediated immunity and lack of reactogeneticity in humans. Infectious cDNA clones of the virulent D2 16681 virus and its attenuated D2 16681-PDK53 were constructed. The attenuated virus elicited neutralizing antibodies in mice and monkeys and developed viremia in monkeys. At molecular level, patterns of cytokines which are immunological mediators released from human mononuclear cells obtained from dengue naïve and immune donors infected with this attenuated virus compared with virulent virus were studied. In dengue naïve PBMC, the virulent and attenuated clones induced alternation in expression of 25 and 24 versus 13 and 18 genes out of 268 genes on day 1 and 3. In dengue immune PBMC, the virulent and attenuated clones induced alternation in expression of 33 and 38 versus 25 and 29 genes on days 1 and 3. Up-regulation of IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IFN-alpha, IFNgammaR, MIP-1alpha, MIP-1beta, MIP-2alpha, VEGF and down-regulation of IL-4, IL-4R, IL-RII, MIF, RANTES, IGF-1, GM-CSF-2 were shown. This review pointed out the infectious clones of the attenuated D2 16681-PDK53 was safe and induced both neutralizing antibodies in vivo and cytokine gene expression in vitro at molecular level. Furthermore, the phenotypic markers of ideal dengue vaccine could be included the alteration of cytokine gene expression and cytokine production in human mononuclear cells.