characterization of immune responses induced by combined clade-a hiv-1 recombinant adenovectors in mice

background: numerous evidences indicate that in some hiv-1 positive patients, the humoral and cellular immune responses are induced against hiv-1 proteins and this is inversely related to the progress of infection. objective: the aim of this study was the evaluation of the adenovectors containing hiv genes in induction of immune responses in mice. methods: the hiv-1 genes including gag p24, rev, nef and exon-1 of tat were amplified from hiv-1 rna (clade-a). the cdna of each gene was cloned into a transfer vector. the transfer vector was then co-transformed into e. coli strain bj5183 together with padenovector δe1/e3. the recombinant adenoviral construct was transfected into qbi-293a cells. recombinant viruses were purified and titrated on 293 cell plates. expression of transgenes was evaluated using western blotting. then 1012 viral particles were injected into 15 groups of 5 mice and all patterns of combination of these 4 hiv-1 genes were evaluated. after 2 weeks, humoral and cellular immune responses were evaluated using elisa, cell proliferation and elispot (il-2, il-4 and ifn-γ) assays, consecutively. results: it was demonstrated that each gene was expressed. the response targets were mostly toward th1, though several th2 responses were also observed. single injection in our study induced a good cellular response but the humoral responses were not as strong as the cellular ones. conclusion: considering and comparing all results and evaluating the various possible interactions revealed that simultaneous injection of tat and gag has enhanced the humoral and cellular responses.