Background: Cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer among woman worldwide and is considered to be caused by infection with high-risk papilloma viruses. Genetic immunization using recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors has shown great promise for vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) infections.
Methods: rAAV5, -8 and -9 vectors expressing an HPV16 L1/E7 fusion gene were generated and applied intranasally for combined prophylactic and therapeutic vaccination of mice.
Results: The rAAV5 and the rAAV9 vectors showed efficient induction of both humoral and cellular immune responses, whereas rAAV8 failed to immunize mice by the intranasal route. The L1-specific immune response evoked by expression of the L1/E7 fusion gene, however, was lower than that evoked by expression of the L1 antigen alone. This deficiency could be compensated by application of Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin or monophsphoryl lipid as adjuvant upon vaccination with rAAV5-L1/E7. Coimmunization of rAAV9-L1/E7 with rAAV5-L1 or boosting of rAAV9-L1/E7 with rAAV5-L1 strongly increased L1-specific neutralizing antibody titres to levels above those achieved by vaccination with vectors expressing L1 alone. Both vectors elicited a vibrant cytotoxic T-lymphocyte response against L1 or E7. Nasal immunization with rAAV5 or rAAV9 was superior to vaccination with HPV16-L1 virus-like particles (VLPs) or HPV16-L1/E7 CVLPs with respect to humoral and cellular immune responses. Vaccination with the rAAV vectors led to a significant protection of animals against a challenge with different HPV tumour cell lines.
Conclusions: Our results show that rAAV5 and rAAV9 vectors are promising candidates for a non-invasive nasal vaccination strategy.