Antibody-producing effects in mice by synthetic immunoactive lipopeptides with the conjugated amino acid sequence of gp120 in human immunodeficiency virus.

To induce peptide-specific antibodies in mice, as a model for vaccination against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), lipopeptide analogs conjugated with three repeating units (KAB-112; designated as gp120-peptide) of a part (Gly-Pro-Gly-Arg-Ala-Phe) of the amino acid sequences of the V3 loop region in gp120 of HIV were synthesized. The mitogenicity, production of nitric oxide (NO) and induction of peptide-specific antibodies in mice by synthetic lipopeptides were examined. Compounds, KAB-8 (diacylglycerol-tetrapeptide having a part of the amino acid sequence in Escherichia coli), KAB-116 (diacylglycerol-cysteine), KAB-117 (diacylglycerol with gp120-peptide) and KAB-121 (KAB-8 with gp120-peptide) were capable of increasing significantly the incorporation of [3H]thymidine into splenocytes of C3H/He mice at concentrations ranging from 12.5 to 100 microM, but KAB-112 (gp120-peptide) and KAB-115 (monoacylglycerol with gp120-peptide) did not show such activity. The compounds, KAB-8, KAB-117 and 121, exhibited NO production in murine macrophages. When 50 nmol of these compounds was administered intraperitoneally into BALB/c mice on days 0, 16 and 46, the peptide-specific antibody titers in their sera produced by each compound were determined with ELISA. The sera of KAB-117 and KAB-121, which were obtained on days 14, 30, 42, 57 and 70, had a higher titer than that of KAB-112 and KAB-115, suggesting that the diacylglycerol derivative enhance the production of the peptide-specific antibodies.