D. Loirat et al., Muscle-specific expression of hepatitis B surface antigen: No effect on DNA-raised immune responses, VIROLOGY, 260(1), 1999, pp. 74-83
The injection of plasmid DNA encoding hepatitis B virus (HBV) envelope prot
eins in mouse muscle leads to the induction of specific humoral and cellula
r immune responses. Most studies on DNA-based immunization have used viral
promoters to drive antigen expression. In this study, we compared the effic
iency of a muscle-specific promoter, the human desmin gene promoter, with t
he commonly used cytomegalovirus (CMV) early gene promoter. We showed that
increased in vitro expression of HBV envelope proteins from the human desmi
n gene promoter has no effect on the in vivo immune response even after the
injection of as little as 10 mu g of DNA. The injection of vectors encodin
g HBV envelope proteins under the control of either the human desmin gene p
romoter or the CMV promoter induced humoral and cytotoxic immune responses
at comparable levels and of the same duration. The recruitment of antigen-p
resenting cells to the DNA injection site by pretreatment of muscle with a
necrotizing agent increases the precocity and the intensity of the response
s, particularly when the nonspecific CMV vector was used. (C) 1999 Academic
Press.