A live attenuated AroA− auxotrophic mutant ofSalmonella typhimurium (SL7207) has been used as carrier for the pCMVβ vector that contains the β-galactosidase (β-gal) gene under the control of the immediate early promoter ofCytomegalovirus (CMV). We tested whether orally administered bacterial carrier could enter and deliver the transgene to antigen-presenting cells (APCs) through the natural enteric route of infection and whether β-gal expression could generate a protective response against an aggressive murine fibrosarcoma transduced with the β-gal gene (F1.A11) that behaves operationally as a tumor-associated antigen. After three courses, at 15-day intervals, mice developed both cell-mediated and systemic humoral responses to β-gal. Mice vaccinated with the Salmonella harboring pCMVβ, but not with plasmid-less carrier, showed resistance to a challenge with F1.A11 cells. These experiments suggest that Salmonella-based DNA immunization allows us to specifically target antigen expression in vivo to APCs. To prove that the transgene is actually expressed by APCs as a function of an eukaryotic promoter, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) was placed under the control of either the eukariotic CMV or a prokaryotic promoter. Using cytofluorometric analysis, GFP was detected only in splenocytes of mice receiving a Salmonella carrier harboring GFP under the CMV promoter. These results indicate that transgene expression occurs because of a Salmonella-mediated gene transfer to eukaryotic cells. Finally, approximately 19% of the splenocytes expressed GFP. Among them, F4/80+ macrophages and CD11cbright dendritic cells (DCs) were scored as positive for GFP expression. Extensive work has been performed trying to optimize the way to transfect DCs, ex vivo, with genes coding for relevant antigens. We show here, for the first time, that DCs can be directly and specifically transduced in vivo such to induce DNA vaccination against tumors.
© 1998 by The American Society of Hematology.
Dendritic cells at a DNA vaccination site express the encoded influenza nucleoprotein and prime MHC class I-restricted cytolytic lymphocytes upon adoptive transfer