Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor DNA prime-protein boost strategy to enhance efficacy of a recombinant pertussis DNA vac-cine

Authors：Qing tian LIYong zhang ZHUJia you CHUKe DONG Ping HE Chun yan FENG Bao yu HU Shu min ZHANG Xiao kui GUO Institute of Medical Biology; Peking Union Medical College; Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences; Kunming; China; Department of Medical Microbiology; Parasitology; Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; Shanghai; China; Chinese National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical; Biological Products

Source：ACTA PHARMACOLOGICA SINICA, 2006, (11): 1487-1494.

• granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor
• pertussis
• DNA vaccines

<正> Aim:To investigate a new strategy to enhance the efficacy of a recombinantpertussis DNA vaccine.The strategy is co-injection with cytokine plasmids asprime,and boosted with purified homologous proteins.Method:A recombinantpertussis DNA vaccine containing the pertussis toxin subunit 1(PTS 1),fragmentsof the filamentous hemagglutinin(FHA)gene and pertactin(PRN)gene encodingfilamentous hemagglutinin and pertactin were constructed.Balb/c mice were im-munized with several DNA vaccines and antigen-specific antibodies anti-PTS1,anti-PRN,anti-FHA,cytokines interleukin(IL)-10,IL-4,IFN-γ,TNF-α,and spleno-cyte-proliferation assay were used to describe immune responses.Results:Therecombinant DNA vaccine could elicit similar immune responses in mice as that ofseparate plasmids encoding the 3 fragments,respectively.Mice immunized withDNA and boosted with the corresponding protein elicited more antibodies thanthose that received DNA as boost.In particular,when the mice were co-immu-nized with murine granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor plasmidsand boosted with proteins,all 4 cytokines and the 3 antigen-specific antibodieswere significantly increased compared to the pVAX1 group.Anti-PTS1,anti-FHA,IL-4 and TNF-α elicited in the colony stimulating factor(CSF)prime-proteinboost group showed significant increase compared to all the other groups.Conclusion:This prime and boost strategy has proven to be very useful in im-proving the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines against pertussis.