Mucosal vaccination with a recombinant Salmonella typhimurium expressing human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) L1 virus-like particles (VLPs) or HPV16 VLPs purified from insect cells inhibits the growth of HPV16-expressing tumor cells in mice.

Human papillomaviruses, mainly type 16 (HPV16), are responsible for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, which can lead, in association with other factors, to cervical cancer. Both Salmonella recombinant vaccine strains assembling HPV16 virus-like particles (VLPs) and HPV16 VLPs purified from insect cells are able to induce HPV16 neutralizing antibodies in genital secretions of mice after nasal immunization. Anti-HPV16-specific antibodies in cervical secretions of women may prevent genital infection with HPV16, although this cannot be critically evaluated in the absence of an experimental model for genital papillomavirus infection. Induction of HPV16-specific cell-mediated immunity in the genital mucosa could improve the efficacy of a vaccine and a mucosal route of immunization might be necessary to do so. It has been shown that systemic immunization of mice with purified HPV16 VLPs confers protection against an HPV16-expressing tumor cell challenge through the induction of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes. Using the same C3 tumor model, we show that intranasal immunization of mice with purified HPV16 VLPs in a prophylactic setting also induces anti-tumor immunity. More interestingly, mucosal vaccination of mice with a Salmonella recombinant strain stably expressing HPV16 L1 VLPs also induces anti-tumor immunity in prophylactic as well as in therapeutic settings. Our data suggest that attenuated Salmonella strains expressing chimeric VLPs containing nonstructural viral proteins might be a promising candidate vaccine against cervical cancer by inducing both neutralizing antibodies and cell-mediated immunity.