Fragmentation of SIV-gag vaccine induces broader T cell responses.

ABSTRACT:

Background

High mutation rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) allows escape from T cell recognition preventing development of effective T cell vaccines. Vaccines that induce diverse T cell immune responses would help overcome this problem. Using SIV gag as a model vaccine, we investigated two approaches to increase the breadth of the CD8 T cell response. Namely, fusion of vaccine genes to ubiquitin to target the proteasome and increase levels of MHC class I peptide complexes and gene fragmentation to overcome competition between epitopes for presentation and recognition.

Methodology/principal findings

three vaccines were compared: full-length unmodified SIV-mac239 gag, full-length gag fused at the N-terminus to ubiquitin and 7 gag fragments of equal size spanning the

SUBMITTER: Benlahrech A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3485275 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature