Novel treatment modalities are required urgently in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A vaccine that induces cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) is an ideal strategy for cancer, and glypican-3 (GPC3) is a potential option for HCC. Blocking the programmed death-1 (PD-1)/PD-L1 pathway is a rational strategy to overcome tumor escape and tolerance toward CTLs. In the present study, we invest...

Epitope-based vaccines designed to induce CTL responses specific for HIV-1 are being developed as a means for addressing vaccine potency and viral heterogeneity. We identified a set of 21 HLA-A2, HLA-A3, and HLA-B7 restricted supertype epitopes from conserved regions of HIV-1 to develop such a vaccine. Based on peptide-binding studies and phenotypic frequencies of HLA-A2, HLA-A3, and HLA-B7 all...

Background & Objective: DNA vaccines as a new generation of vaccines require adjuvant to improve vaccine immunogenicity; adjuvants can also increase the DNA vaccine efficacy. In this study, the effects of the host’s interferon-inducible Mx protein as bio adjuvant and conventional alum adjuvant were evaluated.   Materials & Methods: The BALB/c mice were immunized by different prime-boost strate...

Objective(s): In this study, for the first time, MF59 adjuvant was used to develop a cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) vaccine. The efficacy of the vaccine was compared with the efficacy of CETP vaccine formulated with Alum/CpG, the formulation that its immunogenicity has been already demonstrated in rabbit and mice. Materials and Methods: Tetanus toxoid- CETP peptide (TT-CETP) was mixe...

Background: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious and economically important disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals worldwide. In recent years, a series of outbreaks of FMD have occurred in many countries. Recombinant protein synthesis incorporating protective B- and T-cell epitopes are candidates for new safer and more effective (FMD) vaccines that have potential to provide p...

PURPOSE To determine the toxicity, safety, and immunogenicity of a human papillomavirus 16 (HPV16) E6 and E7 long peptide vaccine administered to end-stage cervical cancer patients. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Three groups of end-stage cervical cancer patients (in total n = 35) were s.c. vaccinated with HPV16 E6 combined with or separated from HPV16 E7 overlapping long peptides in Montanide ISA-51 ad...

Efficient loading of MHC class II molecules with a T helper epitope of choice can be achieved through genetic exchange of the MHC class II-associated invariant chain peptide (CLIP) sequence with a sequence encoding the helper peptide. We have now used this method to engineer a cellular vaccine that continuously expresses a tumor-specific helper epitope in a defined costimulatory context. We pro...

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), an enteric coronavirus, is the causative agent of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) that damages intestinal epithelial cells and results in severe diarrhea and dehydration in neonatal suckling pigs with up to 100% mortality. The oral vaccine route is reported as a promising approach for inducing protective immunity against PEDV invasion. Furthermore, dendri...