Perspectives of AIDS Vaccine Development T Cell-based Vaccine

ABSTRACT

Estimated number of adults and children newly infected with HIV-1 during 2001 alone is 5 million in total. An effective vaccine, in addition to education & public health approaches, has been believed to be the best option to stop the HIV-1 transmission, especially for developing countries. Among AIDS vaccine candidates, DNA vaccine is relatively safe and, in a certain extent, mimics some attributes of live attenuated vaccine, with regard to in vivo gene expression & the type of immunity induced. We recently demonstrated that DNA vaccines expressing SIVmac239 structural and regulatory genes, augmented with coadministration of IL-12 mutant induced the strongest T cell responses, resulting in low to undetectable setpoint viral loads, stable CD4+ T cell counts, and no evidence of clinical diseases or mortality by day 420 after challenge. This finding is the second demonstration, following the protective result of live attenuated SIV vaccine in SIVmac-rhesus monkey model, which was known to have safety problem. So, our DNA vaccines could give a significant impact on HIV-1 epidemic by slowing or stopping the spread of HIV-1, leading to eventual eradication of HIV-1 and AIDS in the population.