The immune response in mice inoculated with HIV-1 gag-gp120 chimeric gene DNA vaccine and IL-18 plasmid

AIM: To explore the immune response in mice inoculated with HIV-1 chimeric gene gag-gp120 DNA vaccine and IL-18 plasmid. METHODS: BALB/c mice were injected i.m with eukaryotic expression plasmid pVAXIL18 containing IL-18 gene and DNA vaccine plasmid pVAXGE containing HIV-1 gag-gp120 chimeric gene. The specific killing activities of spleen CTL and the titers of serum antibodies of the immunized mice were detected. RESULTS: The specific killing activities of spleen CTL and the titers of serum antibodies in the co-inoculation group were significantly higher than those in the single inoculation group(P<0.05), the vector control group (P<0.01) and PBS control group (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: The specific cellular and humoral immunity in mice can be induced by co-inoculating HIV-1 gag-gp120 chimeric gene DNA vaccine and IL-18 plasmid indicating that IL-18 augments immune response as immunoadjuvant.