FEMS Pathogens and Disease, 73, 2015, ftu012 doi: 10.1093/femspd/ftu012 Advance Access Publication Date: 4 December 2014 Research Article RESEARCH ARTICLE An effective DNA priming-protein boosting approach for the cervical cancer vaccination Zahra Kianmehr 1 , Susan K. Ardestani 1 , Hoorieh Soleimanjahi 2 , Behrokh Farahmand 3 , Asghar Abdoli 2 , Maryam Khatami 4 , Khadijeh Akbari 3 and Fatemeh Fotouhi 3, ∗ 1 Immunology Lab, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, P.O. Box 131451384, 2 Department of Virology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran, P.O. Box 14115111, 3 Infuenza Research Lab, Department of Virology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran P.O. Box 1316943551 and 4 Production and Research complex, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Karaj, Iran P.O. Box 3159915111 ∗ Corresponding author: Infuenza Research Lab, Department of Virology, PasteurInstitute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. Tel: +98-21-66496517; E-mail: fotouhi@pasteur.ac.ir One sentence summary: Immunogenicity enhancement of an HPV-16 L1 DNA vaccine using DNA priming - L1 VLP protein boosting. Editor: Willem van Eden ABSTRACT Considerable advances have been made in developing human papillomaviruses (HPV) prophylactic vaccines based on L1 virus-like particles (VLPs). However, there are limitations in the availability of these vaccines in developing countries, where most cases of cervical cancer occur. In the current study, the prime-boost immunization strategies were studied using a DNA vaccine carrying HPV-16 L1 gene (pcDNA/L1) and insect cell baculovirus-derived HPV-16 L1 VLP. The humoral immunity was evaluated by measuring the specifc IgG levels, and the T-cell immune response was assessed by measuring different cytokines such as IFN-γ , TNF-α and IL-10. Results showed that although immunization with pcDNA/L1 alone could induce strong cellular immune responses, higher immunogenicity especially antibody response was achieved in pcDNA/L1 priming-VLP boosting regimen. Therefore, we suggest that prime-boost regimen can be considered as an effcient prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine. Key words: HPV-16; VLPs; DNA vaccine; prime-boost regimen; prophylactic vaccine; immune response INTRODUCTION DNA-based immunization has been considered as one of the in- teresting approaches for vaccination. DNA vaccines may afford a series of advantages over traditional vaccines including safety, greater stability, technically simple design, time-saving and less expensive production process, ease of storage and transport. Moreover, these vaccines are capable of eliciting both antigen- specifc humoral and cellular immune responses (Kutzler and Weiner 2008). However, one of the problems associated with DNA vaccines is lower DNA-raised antibodies in comparison with that of protein-raised ones (Kim et al., 1998; Tang et al., 2007; Ferraro et al., 2011). The prime-boost strategy, which is the com- bination of DNA vaccine priming step followed by boosting with related protein or other vectors each expressing similar anti- gens, can induce high levels of specifc humoral immunity and in some cases can confer protection against infectious agents (Ramshaw and Ramsay 2000; Eo et al., 2001). This procedure has Received: 7 August 2014; Accepted: 3 November 2014 C  FEMS 2014. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com 1 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/femspd/article/73/2/1/1796544 by guest on 14 December 2022