Effect of immunological adjuvants: GM-CSF (granulocyte-monocyte colony stimulating factor) and IL-23 (interleukin-23) on immune responses generated against hepatitis C virus core DNA vaccine

ELISPOT analysis of a new CTL based DNA vaccine for HIV-1 using GM-CSF in DNA prime/peptide boost strategy: GM-CSF induced long-lived memory responses

“…While exploring IgG isotypes our results revealed that both specific IgG1 and IgG2a were augmented. Considering that IgG1 is a Th2 marker and IgG2a is a Th1 marker [34,35], these findings show that co-immunization with GM-CSF stimulates both Th1 and Th2 pattern of immune responses and the results are in agreement with our cytokine response in the present study and other studies [33,36]. Next, we explored the ability of GM-CSF to help maintenance of memory T or B cell population.…”

“…These findings amend previous studies by revealing that GM-CSF may induce both Th1 and Th2 pattern of immune responses. In a previous study on HCV Core DNA vaccine in combination with GM-CSF we have shown that GM-CSF had a similar effect in elevating both IL-4 and IFN-␥ cytokines [33]. Results of antibody responses in this work showed that GM-CSF enhanced specific antibody level.…”

“…Results of immunoassays performed 4 weeks after final immunization showed that GM-CSF improves the immunogenicity of candidate vaccine through increasing lymphocyte proliferation activity, cytokine production as well as humoral immune responses while its effect on CTL activity showed a borderline increase. There have been reports indicating that co-administration of GM-CSF and DNA vaccine may improve humoral and cellular immune response [24,33]. Cytokine analysis of experimental groups in our work revealed that co-administration of GM-CSF and our candidate vaccine increases both IL-4 and IFN-␥ compared to vaccine alone in the immunized group.…”

Th17 cytokines and vaccine-induced immunity

“…For example the inclusion of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-1 and IL-6 as co adjuvants in generation of T helper cells that can produce IL-17 have potent in vivo cognate activity[68]. Further co-administration of IL-23 expression plasmid in a Hepatitis C virus (HCV) prime-boost immunization enhanced HCV specific CD4 and CD8+ T cells that produce IFNγ as well as HCV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytic activity[34, 36, 67]. Incorporation of IL-23 in influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) cleared more virus following challenge with influenza[105].…”

Construction and Preparation of Three Recombinant Adenoviruses Expressing Truncated NS3 and Core Genes of Hepatitis C Virus for Vaccine Purposes

“…At present, protease blocked NS3 employed in an inactivated yeast system is in phase II of clinical evaluation, indicating the benefit of removing this enzymatic activity (20). HCV core protein, as the most conserved antigen among different HCV genotypes, has been employed extensively for induction of cellular immunity in animal models as well as the human models (10, 14, 22, 23). Although the core antigen was employed in clinical trials, some publications indicated the autoimmune property of both C and N-terminal domain sequences of core protein that may be harmful for human vaccine purposes (24).…”