Laboratory of Nucleic Acid Vaccines, Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
Emerg Microbes Infect. 2021 Dec;10(1):833-841. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2021.1918026.
While DNA prime-protein boost vaccination approach has been widely used in preclinical and clinical studies especially in the field of HIV vaccine development, the exact role of DNA immunization has not been fully identified. Our previous work demonstrated that DNA immunization was able to elicit T follicular helper (Tfh) cell responses and germinal center (GC) B cell development in a mouse model. In the current report, a mouse immunogenicity study was conducted to further ask whether DNA immunization is able to elicit antigen-specific B cell responses. Using HIV-1 Env as model antigen delivered in the form of DNA prime-protein boost, our data demonstrated that DNA prime was able to enhance the antigen-specific B cell responses for both Env-specific antibody secreting cells (ASC) and memory B cells. Furthermore, the DNA priming can greatly reduce the need of including an adjuvant as part of the recombinant protein vaccine boost formulation. Our findings revealed one mechanism that supports the value of DNA priming in assisting the inductin of high affinity and long lasting antigen specific antibody responses.
虽然 DNA 疫苗-蛋白疫苗加强接种方法已广泛应用于临床前和临床研究，特别是在 HIV 疫苗开发领域，但 DNA 免疫的确切作用尚未完全确定。我们之前的工作表明，DNA 免疫能够在小鼠模型中诱导滤泡辅助性 T 细胞（Tfh）反应和生发中心（GC）B 细胞发育。在本报告中，进行了一项小鼠免疫原性研究，以进一步探讨 DNA 免疫是否能够诱导抗原特异性 B 细胞反应。使用 HIV-1Env 作为模型抗原，以 DNA 疫苗-蛋白疫苗加强接种的形式进行递送，我们的数据表明，DNA 疫苗能够增强针对 Env 特异性抗体分泌细胞（ASC）和记忆 B 细胞的抗原特异性 B 细胞反应。此外，DNA 疫苗接种能够大大减少在重组蛋白疫苗加强制剂中包含佐剂的需求。我们的研究结果揭示了一种支持 DNA 疫苗接种在辅助诱导高亲和力和长效抗原特异性抗体反应中的价值的机制。
