Molecular adjuvants for malaria DNA vaccines based on the modulation of host-cell apoptosis

Malaria represents a major global health problem but despite extensive efforts, no effective vaccine is available. Various vaccine candidates have been developed that provide protection in animal models, such as a gene gun-delivered DNA vaccine encoding the circumsporozoite protein (CSP) of Plasmodium berghei. A common shortcoming of most malaria vaccines is the requirement for multiple immunizations leaving room for improvement even for established vaccine candidates such as the CSP-DNA vaccine. In this study, we explored whether regulating apoptosis in DNA vaccine transfected host cells could accelerate the onset of protective immunity and provide significant protection after a single immunization. A pro-apoptotic gene (Bax) was used as a molecular adjuvant in an attempt to mimic the immunostimulatory apoptosis triggered by viral or virus-derived vaccines, while anti-apoptotic genes such as Bcl-XL may increase the life span of transfected cells thus prolonging antigen production. Surprisingly, co-delivery of either Bax or Bcl-XL greatly reduced CSP-DNA vaccine efficacy after a single immunization. Co-delivery of Bax for three immunizations still had a detrimental effect on protective immunity, while repeated co-delivery of Bcl-XL had no negative impact. The fine characterization of humoral and cellular immune response modulated by these two molecular adjuvants revealed a previously unknown effect, i.e., a shift in the Th-profile. These results demonstrate that pro- or anti-apoptotic molecules should not be used as molecular adjuvants without careful evaluation of the resulting immune response. This finding represents yet another example that strategies to enhance vaccine efficacy developed for other model systems such as viral diseases cannot easily be applied to any vaccine.