The Effects of Intradermal Vaccination with DNA Encoding for the T-cell Receptor on the Induction of Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis in B10.PL Mice

Intradermal gene administration was found to induce a more profound immune response than direct intramuscular gene injection. We performed intradermal vaccination of B10.PL mice with DNA encoding for the V 8.2 region of the T-cell receptors (TCR). Three weeks later, these mice were immunized with rat myelin basic protein (MBP). Daily mean clinical scores and mortality rate were lower in this group compared with controls. The proliferative responses of lymph node cells to rat MBP were slightly less in the vaccination groups than in the control groups (p < 0.05). However, we detected no differences between the two groups with regard to the production of MBP-specific IgG, IgG1, & IgG2a antibodies. The levels of cytokine mRNA expression in the vaccination groups were observed higher than in the control groups without antigen-specific stimulation, but all of cytokine expressions between the vaccination and control groups after antigen-specific stimulation were identical. These results demonstrate that intradermal DNA vaccines encoding for TCR might prove to be useful in the control of autoimmune disease.