COMPARISON OF 24 DIFFERENT ADJUVANTS FOR INACTIVATED HIV-2 SPLIT WHOLE VIRUS AS ANTIGEN IN MICE - INDUCTION OF TITERS OF BINDING-ANTIBODIESAND TOXICITY OF THE FORMULATIONS

The objective of this study was the comparison of the quantity and qua lity of the humoral immune response against inactivated whole human im munodeficiency virus type 2. Twenty-four different adjuvants were test ed. The toxicity of these preparations was determined. Due to the larg e number of experiments, the animal model used was the NMRI mouse. Ser a were assayed for the presence of antibodies by ELISA and Western blo t, The toxicity of the adjuvants was determined by observing lethal si de-effects occurring within two days after injection of the immunogeni c preparations, The results show that polymethylmethacrylate nanoparti cles were the best overall adjuvant, inducing the highest titres of an tibodies compared with other adjuvants as well as producing a signific antly better immune response against a number of individual HIV-2 anti gens without any observable toxic side-effects, However, this adjuvant did not induce antibodies against the outer envelope protein gp120, w hereas such antibodies were induced by aluminium compounds, Freund's c omplete and incomplete adjuvants, and fumed silica (Aerosil). This res ult suggests the necessity of using vaccines with two or more differen t adjuvants in order to induce the required immune response against ph ysically different antigens.