Evaluation of cellular immune responses in mice elicited by Chinese AIDS candidate vaccines

Abstract

Objective To compare cellular immune responses in mice elicited by Chinese different AIDS candidate vaccines.Methods According to their different immunization procedures,BALB/c mice were immunized with 6 AIDS candidate vaccines,separately.Spleen cells were isolated for the detection of cellular immune response to HIV-specific peptides using enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot(ELISPOT)assay and intracellular cytokine staining(ICS)method.Results AIDS vaccines were evaluated by using potential T-cell epitopes(PTE)Gag,Env and Pol peptides pool and ELISPOT.The positive conversion rates for cellular immune response of 1#-6# vaccines fluctuated from 70% to 100%.The vaccine-induced cellular immune responses to specific peptides pool are different not only in magnitude but also in breadth.The Th1type cytokines,IFN-γand IL-2,were detected with ELISPOT in 1# and 2# vaccines.The productions of IFN-γand IL-2 induced by both of the two vaccines showed a moderate correlation(r1 =0.62,P1 ＜0.01 ;r2=0.79,P2 ＜ 0.01).The positive conversion rate of IFN-γ secreting cells of 1 # vaccine was 66.7%(10/15)mice detected with both ELISPOT and ICS.And the results tested by ELISPOT and ICS showed moderate correlation(r = 0.55,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The magnitude and breadth of cellular immune responses induced by different AIDS candidate vaccines are different.Being induced by different AIDS candidate vaccines,the IFN-γand other Th1 type cytokines detected by ELISPOT or ICS could be used to evaluate the cellular immune responses in mice. Key words: AIDS; Vaccine; Cellular immune responses