Specific cellular immunity and antitumor responses in C57BL/6 mice induced by DNA vaccine encoding murine AFP

BACKGROUND: The inoculation of plasmid DNA encod-ing tumor-associated antigens is a novel and powerful stra-tegy for antitumor vaccination. This study was designed toconstruct the DNA vaccine of mouse AFP and to observethe specific cellular immunologic responses and the antitu-mor responses in mice induced by this vaccine.METHODS: The murine AFP gene was amplified by RT-PCR from total RNA extracted from Hepal-6 cells andcloned into the vector pcDNA3.1 to construct pmAFP.The DNA vaccine was identified by restriction enzymeanalysis, sequencing and expression. EL-4 ( mAFP) wasdeveloped by stable transfection of EL-4 cells with pmAFP.The frequency of cells producing IFN-γ in splenocytes har-vested from the mice immunized with the DNA vaccine byintramuscular injection was measured by enzyme linkedimmunospot (ELISPOT). The mice immunized with theDNA vaccine were inoculated with EL-4 (mAFP) cells inback to observe the inhibitory effect of the immunizationon tumor. On the other hand, blood samples were collect-ed from the immunized mice to check the functions of theliver and kidney.RESULTS: The murine AFP gene was successfully clonedby RT-PCR. Results from restriction enzyme analysis, se-quencing and expression showed that the DNA vaccine wassuccessfully constructed. The expression of mAFP mRNAin EL-4 (mAFP) was confirmed by RT-PCR. The resultsof ELISPOT showed that the number of IFN-γ-producingcells of the pmAFP vaccine group was significantly higherthan that of other groups (P <0.01). The tumor volume inthe pmAFP vaccine group (1042. 42 ± 123. 71 mm3 ) wassignificantly smaller than that in other groups (P<0.01).The function of mouse liver and kidney in each group wasunchanged.CONCLUSION: The successfully constructed DNA vaccineof AFP can induce specific cellular immunologic responsesand significant antitumor reponses in mouse and has no im-pact on the function of mouse liver and kindey.