News — Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University are one step closer to developing a vaccine against the AIDS disease.
Led by Matthias J. Schnell, Ph.D., director of the Jefferson Vaccine Center, the researchers found that a rabies virus鈥揵ased vaccine administered to monkeys protected against the simian equivalent of the HIV virus (SIV). The data were published in the journal Vaccine.
The researchers previously showed that a rabies-based vaccine expressing HIV and SIV antigens protective against a chimeric HIV/SIV virus in monkeys. In this study, they used highly attenuated rabies virus vaccine vectors to protect against challenge with the highly pathogenic SIVmac251. This type of SIV virus causes a more similar disease in monkeys compared to human infection with HIV-1. In addition, it is difficult to protect monkeys against AIDS-like disease after challenge with SIVmac251.
Two vaccine strategies were used: immunization with a recombinant rabies virus expressing SIVmac239GagPol, or a combination of that and a rabies virus expressing SIVmac239Env. Both strategies induced neutralizing antibody production, CD8+ T cell responses, and increased protection. Although the combination with Env helped immediately following the infection, the long-term benefits were minimal. However, it was surprising that the rabies-based vaccine was able to induce such potent anti-SIV humoral responses.
鈥淎lthough we can鈥檛 yet block the infection, we showed that we can protect against disease,鈥� said Dr. Schnell. 鈥淲e also saw significant antibody activity against the virus, which is promising. In addition, this is a very simple approach that only took two immunizations.鈥�
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