Duanthanorm PromkhatkaewNadthanan PinyosukheeWilai ThongdeejaroenReungpung SutthentPathom SawanpanyalertPaijit WarachitThailand Ministry of Public HealthMahidol UniversityMedical Biotechnology Center2018-09-132018-09-132009-01-01Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health. Vol.40, No.1 (2009), 113-122012515622-s2.0-59149085532https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/28261In this study, we employed a recombinant Mycobacterium bovis Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) harboring whole HIV-1 CRF01-AE gag DNA as a candidate vaccine to investigate specific cell-mediated immunity in BALB/c mice. Construction of the stable expression recombinant BCG was achieved by demonstrating by Western blot detection of protein of approximately 55 kDa. By a single injection of 0.1 mg of the recombinant HIV-1 gag protein expressing BCG subcutaneously into mice, after 2 weeks various specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses were exhibited against a single gag epitope of amino acid positions 294-304, and also against various peptide regions along the entire gag protein with moderate CTL activities (10-35% specific cell lysis), which increased to relatively high levels (50-68%) after one month. However, after two months activities were 3-3.7 fold lower. On the other hand, gag-specific lymphocyte proliferation was detected 9.3 fold higher than that of non-immunized mouse spleen cells. Our results indicate that in mice, BCG can be used as a recombinant live vector to induce cellular immune responses to HIV-1 gag antigen.Mahidol UniversityMedicineArticleSCOPUS