Vaccines and their transfection potency

Viral vaccines have been shown to contain residual host cell-DNA. There is no doubt about uptake and expression of foreign DNA in mammalian cells but the mechanism of transfection is not completely understood. It is suggested that DNA associates with several compounds and is transferred into the cel l by endocytosis. In this study we estimate the potential of transfection o f several original adjuvants by adding reporter plasmid DNA (pDNA) to vacci nes. We used fibrosarcoma cells as an in vitro model and the results indica te that the cells are not able to express pDNA. Therefore we propose that a djuvants included in viral vaccines have no potential to transfect fibrobla sts, (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.