Long-peptide therapeutic vaccination against CRPV-induced papillomas in HLA-A2.1 transgenic rabbits

Publication date: 2014 Source:Trials in Vaccinology, Volume 3 Author(s): Jiafen Hu , Lynn R. Budgeon , Karla K. Balogh , Xuwen Peng , Nancy M. Cladel , Neil D. Christensen Long peptide immunization is a promising strategy to clear established tumors. In the current study, we investigated the therapeutic effect of a naturally existing long peptide that contained two HLA-A2.1 restricted epitopes (CRPVE1/149–157 and CRPVE1/161–169) from cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV) E1 using our CRPV/HLA-A2.1 transgenic rabbit model. A universal Tetanus Toxin helper motif (TT helper) was tagged at either the N-terminus or the carboxyl-terminus of this long peptide and designated as TT-E1 peptide and E1 peptide-TT, respectively. Four groups of HLA-A2.1 transgenic rabbits were infected with wild type CRPV DNA. Three weeks post-infection, the rabbits were immunized four times with TT-E1 peptide, E1 peptide only, E1 peptide-TT or TT-control peptide with two-week intervals between immunizations. Tumor outgrowth was monitored and recorded weekly. After the third booster immunization, tumors on two of the four E1 peptide-TT immunized rabbits began to shrink. One animal from this group was free of tumors at the termination of the study. The mean papilloma size of E1 peptide-TT immunized rabbits was significantly smaller when compared with that of the three other groups (P <0.05, one way ANOVA analysis). It is interesting that E1 peptide-TT vaccination not only stimulated s...
Source: Trials in Vaccinology - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research