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Utilizing the Antigen Capsid-Incorporation Strategy for the Development of Adenovirus Serotype 5-Vectored Vaccine Approaches
Published on: May 6, 2015
A heterologous prime-boosting strategy with replicating Vaccinia virus vectors and plant-produced HIV-1 Gag/dgp41
Lydia R Meador1, Sarah A Kessans2, Jacquelyn Kilbourne3
1Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA; Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Abstract:
Showing modest efficacy, the RV144 HIV-1 vaccine clinical trial utilized a non-replicating canarypox viral vector and a soluble gp120 protein boost. Here we built upon the RV144 strategy by developing a novel combination of a replicating, but highly-attenuated Vaccinia virus vector, NYVAC-KC, and plant-produced HIV-1 virus-like particles (VLPs). Both components contained the full-length Gag and a membrane anchored truncated gp41 presenting the membrane proximal external region with its conserved broadly neutralizing epitopes in the pre-fusion conformation. We tested different prime/boost combinations of these components in mice and showed that the group primed with NYVAC-KC and boosted with both the viral vectors and plant-produced VLPs have the most robust Gag-specific CD8 T cell responses, at 12.7% of CD8 T cells expressing IFN-γ in response to stimulation with five Gag epitopes. The same immunization group elicited the best systemic and mucosal antibody responses to Gag and dgp41 with a bias towards IgG1.

