Nico Michel, Martin Müller
Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum Heidelberg Germany
N.Michel@dkfz.de, Martin.Mueller@dkfz.de
Definition
DNA vaccines induce cellular and/or humoral immune responses upon injection of purified (“naked”) plasmid DNA. In a more extended view, nucleic acid vaccination is performed using viral vector systems to increase the efficiency of delivery (for a more comprehensive overview see (1) and http://www.dnavaccine.com). The DNA that is used for vaccination contains a eukaryotic promoter that drives expression of a downstream gene encoding the antigen against which an immune response is to be evoked (eukaryotic expression cassette, see Fig. 1). Compared to other vaccines (e.g. purified recombinant proteins, attenuated or inactivated live virus), DNA vaccines are of great simplicity and therefore can be produced easily and are very cost effective. The DNA is administered either via simple injection or with the aid of delivery vehicles (aerosols, liposomes,...
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References
Gurunathan S, Klinman DM, Seder RA (2000). DNA vaccines: immunology, application, and optimization. Annu Rev Immunol 18:927–974
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Tang DC, DeVit M, Johnston SA (1992). Genetic immunization is a simple method for eliciting an immune response. Nature 356:152–154
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© 2004 Springer-Verlag
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(2004). Genetic Vaccination. In: Encyclopedic Reference of Molecular Pharmacology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29832-0_673
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29832-0_673
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42843-5
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