Potential of recombinant Mycobacterium paragordonae expressing HIV-1 Gag as a prime vaccine for HIV-1 infection

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 15515 - 11
• Main Authors: Kim, Byoung-Jun, Kim, Bo-Ram, Kook, Yoon-Hoh, Kim, Bum-Joon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 29.10.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 13/21; 13/31; 631/250/590/1867; 631/326/107; 82/1; AIDS Vaccines - immunology; Animals; Antigen-presenting cells; Antigens; Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine; BCG; Cell Proliferation; Cytokines - biosynthesis; Cytotoxicity; Female; Gag protein; Gene Products, gag - immunology; HIV; HIV Antibodies - biosynthesis; HIV Infections - immunology; HIV Infections - prevention & control; HIV-1 - genetics; HIV-1 - immunology; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humanities and Social Sciences; Immune response; Infections; Interferon-gamma - biosynthesis; Lymphocytes T; Mice; Mice, Inbred BALB C; multidisciplinary; Mycobacterium; Mycobacterium - genetics; p24 Protein; Recombination, Genetic; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic - immunology; Tuberculosis; Vaccine development; Vaccines; Vaccines, Synthetic - immunology; γ-Interferon
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-51875-6

Recombinant Mycobacterium strains such as recombinant BCG (rBCG) have received considerable attention for the HIV-1 vaccine development. Recently, we described a temperature-sensitive Mycobacterium paragordonae (Mpg) strain as a novel live tuberculosis vaccine that is safer and showed an enhanced protective effect against mycobacterial infection compared to BCG. We studied the possibility of developing a vaccine against HIV-1 infection using rMpg strain expressing the p24 antigen (rMpg-p24). We observed that rMpg-p24 can induce an increased p24 expression in infected antigen presenting cells (APCs) compared to rBCG-p24. We also observed that rMpg-p24 can induce enhanced p24 specific immune responses in vaccinated mice as evidenced by increased p24-specific T lymphocyte proliferation, gamma interferon induction, antibody production and cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. Furthermore, an rMpg-p24 prime and plasmid DNA boost showed an increased CTL response and antibody production compared to rBCG or rMpg alone. In summary, our study indicates that a live rMpg-p24 strain induced enhanced immune responses against HIV-1 Gag in vaccinated mice. Thus, rMpg-p24 may have potential as a preventive prime vaccine in a heterologous prime-boost regimen for HIV-1 infection.