Porcine IL-12 plasmid as an adjuvant improves the cellular and humoral immune responses of DNA vaccine targeting transmissible gastroenteritis virus spike gene in a mouse model

LI, Xunliang; LI, Pengchong; CAO, Liyan; BAI, Yunyun; CHEN, Huijie; LIU, He; REN, Xiaofeng; LI, Guangxing

The S protein of TGEV near the N terminal portion (S1) has four antigenic epitopes [26] . Researchers have reported that the S1 gene could induce better immune responses than the full-length TGEV S gene in mice [24] . Furthermore, the cytokine IL-12 could not only initiate the proliferation of active T cells but also increase the activity of CTLs and natural killer cells [15, 22] . IL-12 has been widely used as an immunological adjuvant in nucleic acid vaccine research [3, 17, 23] . DNA vaccines are safer and more effective than traditional vaccines [25] . Herein, we assessed the influence of IL-12 as an immunological adjuvant in combination with a nucleic acid vaccine comprising the TGEV S gene.