Mini-intronic plasmid vaccination elicits tolerant LAG3⁺ CD8⁺ T cells and inferior antitumor responses.

ABSTRACT: Increasing transgene expression has been a major focus of attempts to improve DNA vaccine-induced immunity in both preclinical studies and clinical trials. Novel mini-intronic plasmids (MIPs) have been shown to cause elevated and sustained transgene expression in vivo. We sought to test the antitumor activity of a MIP, compared to standard DNA plasmid immunization, using the tumor-specific antigen SSX2 in an HLA-A2-restricted tumor model. We found that MIP vaccination elicited a greater frequency of antigen-specific CD8⁺ T cells when compared to conventional plasmid, and protected animals from subsequent tumor challenge. However, therapeutic vaccination with the MIP resulted in an inferior antitumor effect, and CD8⁺ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes from these mic

SUBMITTER: Colluru VT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5087309 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature