Background: A desirable HIV vaccine should induce protective long-lasting humoral and cellular immune responses.
Methods: Macaques were immunized by env DNA, selected from a panel of recently transmitted SIVmac251 Env using intradermal electroporation as vaccine delivery method and magnitude, breadth and longevity of humoral and cellular immune responses.
Results: The macaques developed high, long-lasting humoral immune responses with neutralizing capacity against homologous and heterologous Env. The avidity of the antibody responses was also preserved over 1-year follow-up. Analysis of cellular immune responses demonstrated induction of Env-specific memory T cells harboring granzyme B, albeit their overall levels were low. Similar to the humoral responses, the cellular immunity was persistent over the ~1-year follow-up.
Conclusion: These data show that vaccination by this intradermal DNA delivery regimen is able to induce potent and durable immune responses in macaques.
Keywords: DNA vaccine; HIV; SIV; avidity; binding antibody; cellular responses; durability of responses; neutralizing antibody.
Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Journal of Medical Primatology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.