Cellular immune responses of BALB/c mice induced by intramuscular injection of PRRSV-ORF5 DNA vaccine with different doses

Abstract

BALB/c mice were immunized with 50 μg, 100 μg, 200 μg of pcDNA-PRRSV-ORF5 DNA vaccine respectively by intramuscular injection, with PBS and pcDNA3.1(+) as controls. Fluorescence activated cell Sorter (FACS) was used to detect the number of CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocytes. T-lymphocyte proliferation test was used to detect proliferation of the T-lymphocyte cells in peripheral blood lymphocytes of mice vaccinated with pcDNA-PRRSV-ORF5 DNA vaccine. The results showed that the difference in ConA response to T-lymphocytes in blood was highly significant between all experimental groups and the control group (P < 0.01). The number of CD4+ T-lymphocytes in experimental groups was significantly higher than that of the control group 7 d after vaccination. The number of CD8+ T-lymphocytes in the experimental groups was higher than that of the control group 28 d after vaccination. Mice immunized with a higher dose (200 μg) of DNA vaccine demonstrated higher cellular immune response than those immunized with a lower dose (100 μg, 50 μg) of DNA vaccine. The results demonstrated that pcDNA-PRRSV-ORF5 DNA vaccine could induce a good cellular immune response which may be dose-dependent.