A truncated variant of the hepatitis C virus core induces a slow but potent immune response in mice following DNA immunization

Vaccination of BALB/c mice with pIDKCo, a plasmid containing the coding seq uence for the first 176 amino acids of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) core pro tein, induced both humoral and cellular specific immune responses. Particul arly, the level of anti-core antibodies increased slowly with time up to a mean value above 1:8000 that was generally superior than that found in anti -HCV positive individuals. Six out of nine anti-HCV positive human sera wer e able to inhibit at different extent the binding of mouse anti-core sera t o a recombinant capsid protein. Our results show that it is possible to eli cit a potent humoral and cellular immune response against the HCV core anti gen in mice following DNA immunization. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.