Cellular immune response induced by DNA prime – AdV boost immunization in WHV transgenic mice.

<p>Mice were primed two times by immunization with the pCGWHc plasmid. Four weeks later boosting immunization with Ad5WHc, Ad35WHc, or pCGWHc was performed. The group of mice immunized twice with pCGWHc in combination with Ad5WHc was boosted 4 weeks later for a second time with Ad35WHc. Mice immunized with ‘empty’ pCG and boosted with Ad5 expressing GFP served as controls. (A–B) Representative and summarised frequencies of WHcAg-specific CD8⁺ T-cells detected <i>ex vivo</i> in the population of splenic lymphocytes. Antigen-specific cells were detected using DimerX H2-Db fusion protein loaded with H2-Db-restricted CD8⁺ epitope c13-21. (C,E) Representative and summarised WHcAg-specific IFNγ⁺ CD8⁺ T-cell responses detected in the splenocytes expanded <i>in vitro</i> for 7 days with CD8⁺ T-cell epitope c13-21. (D,F) Representative and summarised WHcAg-specific IFNγ⁺ CD4⁺ T-cell responses in the splenocytes expanded <i>in vitro</i> for 7 days with CD4⁺ T-cell epitope c131-145. The bars represent the mean value obtained for each group of mice including SEM. Asterisks mark the statistically significant difference (<b>*</b><0.05;<b>**</b><0.005; <b>***</b><0.0005; <i>ns</i> – not significant).