Technical Details:
Naked DNA vaccines represent an attractive approach for generating antigen-specific immunity because of their stability and simplicity of delivery. There are particular concerns, however, such as potential integration into the host genome, cell transformation, and limited potency. The usage of DNA-based alpha viral RNA replicons (suicidal DNA vectors) may alleviate the concerns of integration or transformation since suicidal DNA vectors eventually cause lysis of transfected cells. To further improve the potency of suicidal DNA vaccines the effect of linking Mycobacterium tuberculosis heat shock protein 70 to human papillomavirus type 16 was evaluated for the generation of specific immunity generated by DNA-based Semliki Forest virus RNA vector. Results indicate that the suicidal DNA vaccine containing the E7/HSP 70 fusion generated significantly higher E7-specific T cell-mediated immunity than vaccines containing the wild type E7 gene in vaccinated mice.
