Chemokine Gene Adjuvants Can Modulate Immune Responses Induced by DNA Vaccines

Nucleic acid immunization has been shown to induce both antigen-specific cellular and humoral immune responses in vivo. Moreover, immune responses induced by DNA immunization can be enhanced by the use of molecular adjuvants. For example, coadministration of costimulatory molecules (CD80 and CD86), proinflammatory cytokines (interleukin-1α [IL-1α], tumor necrosis factor-α [TNF-α, and TNF-β), Th1 cytokines (interleukin-2[IL-2], IL-12, IL-15, and IL-18), Th2 cytokines (IL-4, IL-5, and IL-10), and granulocytesmacrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) with DNA vaccine constructs leads to modulation of the magnitude and direction (humoral or cellular) of the immune responses. To further engineer the immune response in vivo, we compared the induction and regulation of immune responses from the codelivery of chemokine (IL-8, interferon-γ-inducible protein-10 [γIP-10], macrophage inhibitory protein-1α [MIP-1α], and RANTES) genes with codelivery of cytokine genes. We found that as in cytokine gene codelivery, ...