T-cell responses following Ad35-TBS and Ad26-TBS immunotherapy.

<p>At week 4, baseline IFN-γ production following stimulation with CD4 and CD8 peptides to Ag85A and CD8 peptides to Ag85B were measured by ELISpot prior to randomization (refer to <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0127907#pone.0127907.g001" target="_blank">Fig 1</a>). At week 4, animals in the NC-T4 and TV Ad35+ have not been randomized and are identical to one another. Immediately following randomization at week 4 into the respective groups, immunotherapy was administered via intramuscular injection to the TV Ad35+ animals with 10¹⁰ viral particles of Ad35-TBS which was boosted at week 8. At week 16, baseline immune responses were measured in the TV Ad35+ group prior to randomization into TV Ad26+ and TV Ad26- groups. The TV Ad26+ animals then received heterologous boosting with 10¹⁰ viral particles of Ad26-TBS at week 16 whilst the TV Ad26- received empty Ad26 vector as control. p-values were calculated two weeks after each immunotherapy (weeks 6 and 10) and are detailed in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0127907#pone.0127907.t002" target="_blank">Table 2</a> (n = 5 at each time point for all groups). Lines depict geometric mean. Boosting with Ad26-TBS resulted in significant heightening of CD8 responses to Ag85A (p = 0.01, t-test) and Ag85B (p = 0.01, t-test) at week 18 compared to week 16 that was not observed for CD4 responses to Ag85A (NS = not significant, p = 0.66, t-test). SFU = splenocyte forming units.