Vaccination with recombinant adenovirus expressing multi-stage antigens of Toxoplasma gondii by the mucosal route induces higher systemic cellular and local mucosal immune responses than with other vaccination routes

Wang, Ting; Yin, Huiquan; Li, Yan; Zhao, Lingxiao; Sun, Xiahui; Cong, Hua

Cellular immune responses were first evaluated by analysis of the T-cell subset. The CD4 + and CD8 + T lymphocyte subsets in immunized mice were assayed by flow cytometry. Table 2 shows the percentage of CD4 + and CD8 + T-cells, in comparison with control groups; the percentage of CD8 + T-cells in all vaccination groups with Ad-UMAS increased significantly (p < 0.05). The percentages of CD8 + T-cells in mice immunized intranasally (36.5 ± 1.8%), intraorally (29.7 ± 0.2%), and intramuscularly (27.6 ± 1.3%) were higher than in mice immunized by the subcutaneous and intranasal routes (p < 0.05). The cell-mediated immunity induced in the immunized mice was further evaluated by measuring the amount of cytokines IL-2, IL-10, and IFN-c. Table 3 shows the values of IL-2, IFN-c, and IL-10 in all vaccination groups. The highest levels of IL-2 and IFN-c were detected in the nasal immunization group at 638.7 ± 17.6 pg/mL and 1429.8 ± 37.6 pg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, the lymphocyte proliferation ability was also higher in the mice inoculated nasally with Ad-UMAS than the controls (p < 0.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences in the amount of IL-10 between all the immunization group and control groups (p > 0.05) ( Table 3) .