Novel AIDS vaccine approach using epithelial stem cells as mucosal antigen-presenting cells

Background Because HIV transmission occurs predominantly across mucosal surfaces, the ideal vaccine strategy to prevent infection would be to target HIV at mucosal entry sites of transmission. We investigated a novel vaccine approach, which aim is to elicit long-term immunity against HIV infection at the entry site of the virus. This strategy relies on the expression of viral proteins from epithelial stem cells at the basal layer of the epithelium and using a promoter that is specific for terminally differentiated epithelial.