HIV-1 DNA vaccines and chemokines

DNA vaccines have a demonstrated ability to induce humoral and cellular imm une responses in animal models and humans. The technology, although it date s back to the 1950's, has had an insurgence of interest within the past few years following concurrent research papers. The basic technology is being applied broadly to viral, bacterial and parasitic infections. It has also b een demonstrated that genes delivered via plasmid expression vectors result in expression of functional proteins in the inoculated host. Further, inje ction of plasmids encoding cytokine, chemokine or co-stimulatory molecules, also referred to as immunomodulatory plasmids can lead to the further expa nsion of this technology to include directed immunology. We have been devel oping DNA technology specifically with a focus as a vaccine against HIV-1 i nfection. We report that such vaccines can stimulate immune responses in a variety of relevant animal systems including humoral and cellular responses as well as the production of beta-chemokines. We describe that the beta-ch emokines can both modulate the immune response induced by DNA vaccines and be modulated by the DNA vaccines in the murine and chimpanzee models as wel l as in humans. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights rese rved.