AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, September 7 & 14, 1998
Daniel J. DeNoon, Senior Editor
In HIV infected chimpanzees, vaccination-induced increases in the chemokines correlated with decreased viral load and induction of other anti-HIV immune responses.
"DNA vaccines for HIV-1 may be an important tool to modulate in vivo levels of beta chemokines," suggested David Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues. "The role of such modulation should be examined with regard to vaccine and immune therapy production."
Weiner et al. announced their findings in a poster presentation to the 12th World AIDS Conference, held June 28-July 3, 1998, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Beta chemokines are the natural ligands for the CCR5 receptor, used for cell entry by the vast majority of infecting HIV strains. High levels of beta chemokines are associated with resistance to HIV infection.
The DNA vaccines, developed at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of South Florida, are licensed to Apollon Inc., Malvern, Pennsylvania.
The vaccines encode DNA constructs carrying the HIV env and gag/pol genes. Human trials of the vaccines show that they are remarkably safe and that they can induce HIV specific cell-mediated immune responses in HIV negative volunteers.
The animal studies were performed on mice, macaque monkeys, and chimpanzees already infected with HIV-1 (strain IIIB). All three types of animals had significantly increased beta-chemokine levels in response to the DNA vaccine.
All of the vaccinated macaques had at least a doubling of plasma levels of the beta chemokines MIP-1(alpha) and RANTES. The previously infected chimpanzees, vaccinated with DNA from the MN strain of HIV-1, had three- to eight-fold increases in MIP-1(alpha) serum concentrations, which were correlated with decreased viral load and the appearance of other HIV-1 specific immune responses.
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