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Vaccination with a Fusion Protein That Introduces HIV-1 Gag Antigen into a Multitrimer CD40L Construct Results in Enhanced CD8+ T Cell Responses and Protection from Viral Challenge by Vaccinia-Gag.
- Source :
-
Journal of Virology . Feb2014, Vol. 88 Issue 3, p1492-1501. 10p. - Publication Year :
- 2014
-
Abstract
- CD40 ligand (CD40L, CD154) is a membrane protein that is important for the activation of dendritic cells (DCs) and DC-induced CD8+ T cell responses. To be active, CD40L must cluster CD40 receptors on responding cells. To produce a soluble form of CD40L that clusters CD40 receptors necessitates the use of a multitrimer construct. With this in mind, a tripartite fusion protein was made from surfactant protein D (SPD), HIV-1 Gag as a test antigen, and CD40L, where SPD serves as a scaffold for the multitrimer protein complex. This SPD-Gag-CD40L protein activated CD40-bearing cells and bone marrow-derived DCs in vitro. Compared to a plasmid for Gag antigen alone (pGag), DNA vaccination of mice with pSPD-Gag-CD40L induced an increased number of Gag-specific CD8+ T cells with increased avidity for major histocompatibility complex class I-restricted Gag peptide and improved vaccine-induced protection from challenge by vaccinia-Gag virus. The importance of the multitrimeric nature of the complex was shown using a plasmid lacking the N terminus of SPD that produced a single trimer fusion protein. This plasmid, pTrimer-Gag-CD40L, was only weakly active on CD40-bearing cells and did not elicit strong CD8+ T cell responses or improve protection from vaccinia-Gag challenge. An adenovirus 5 (Ad5) vaccine incorporating SPD-Gag-CD40L was much stronger than Ad5 expressing Gag alone (Ad5-Gag) and induced complete protection (i.e., sterilizing immunity) from vaccinia- Gag challenge. Overall, these results show the potential of a new vaccine design in which antigen is introduced into a construct that expresses a multitrimer soluble form of CD40L, leading to strongly protective CD8+ T cell responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0022538X
- Volume :
- 88
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Virology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 94257683
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.02229-13