Furthermore, the above strategy was also able to induce elevated numbers of CD8+IFN-γ+ VRT752271 in vitro (consistent to our ICS data) and IL-2 effector HIV-specific CD8+ T cells in iliac nodes compared

the control vaccine ( Fig. 4) as measured by ELISPOT. The evaluation of polyfunctional HIV-specific CD8+ T cells (specifically IL-2) in mucosal sites (iliac nodes) by ICS is a challenging task due to small sample size. However, we have found that when mucosal HIV-specific CD8+ T cell immunity is evaluated specifically at the gut mucosae at a single cell level using Fluidigm Biomark analysis, the IL-4R antagonist vaccination can induce enhanced expression of many other immunomodulatory cytokines/chemokines, granzymes and perforins compared to the control vaccination [80]. Interestingly, these elevated systemic/mucosal CD8+IFN-γ+ T cells responses were also found to be long lived as elevated responses were detected at 8 weeks post booster vaccination. Spleen control vaccine vs. IL-4C118 p = 0.012 ( Fig. 5A and B). As it is thought that inhibition

of Th2 cytokine activity could potentially dampen selleckchem antibody responses, we also evaluated whether the IL-4C118 antagonist and IL-13Rα2 adjuvanted vaccines can also induce B cell mediated immunity towards HIV Gag. Female BALB/c mice n = 8 were immunised i.n./i.m. with the vaccines indicated in Table 1 (strategies 1, 4 and 5), HIV p55 gag specific serum IgG1 and IgG2a antibody responses were evaluated at 3-week intervals for 12 weeks following the booster vaccination ( Fig. 6A–C). The absorbance data indicates that the p55-specific IgG1 antibody responses trend generated by all three vaccines were similar across the 12-week period ( Fig. 6A). The endpoint titres at 12 weeks were approaching significance not (p = 0.0587) between the IL-4C118

antagonist and IL-13Rα2 immunised groups ( Fig. 6B). Interestingly, the p55-specific IgG2a antibody responses consistently increased following IL-4C118 antagonist vaccine compared to IL-13Rα2 vaccines across the 12-weeks ( Fig. 6A and C). The endpoint titres clearly indicated that the IL-4C118 antagonist vaccine could induce significantly higher p55-specific IgG2a antibody titres at 6, 9 and 12 weeks ( Fig. 6C). At 6 weeks the control vaccine was also significantly (p = 0.0256) higher than the IL-13Rα2 vaccine ( Fig. 6C). From the both the absorbance trends and the endpoint titre data it was evident that the IL-13Rα2 vaccine regime has suppressed the induction of p55 IgG2a antibodies while having no significant effect upon IgG1 response, the IL-4C118 antagonist elicited comparable antibody responses to the control vaccine. Finally we assessed the protective efficacy of the novel IL-4C118 vaccine compared to our previously tested IL-13Rα2 adjuvanted and the control vaccines [23], using a surrogate attenuated recombinant influenza virus PR8-KdGag197–205 challenge to evaluate CD8+ T cell mediated immunity.