Research

Immature monocyte derived dendritic cells gene expression profile in response to Virus-Like Particles stimulation

Eleonora Aricò^1,2 , Ena Wang¹ , Maria Lina Tornesello³ , Maria Tagliamonte³ , George K Lewis^4,5 , Francesco M Marincola¹ , Franco M Buonaguro³ and Luigi Buonaguro^3,4

¹  Immunogenetics Section, Department of Transfusion Medicine, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1502, USA

²  Department of Cell Biolology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Rome, Italy

³  Lab. Viral Oncogenesis and Immunotherapies & AIDS Reference Center, Department of Experimental Oncology, Istituto Nazionale Tumori "Fond. G. Pascale", 80131 Napoli, Italy

⁴  Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute

⁵  Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, University of Maryland Baltimore, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Translational Medicine 2005, 3:45doi:10.1186/1479-5876-3-45

Published:	29 December 2005

Abstract

We have recently developed a candidate HIV-1 vaccine model based on HIV-1 Pr55gag Virus-Like Particles (HIV-VLPs), produced in a baculovirus expression system and presenting a gp120 molecule from an Ugandan HIV-1 isolate of the clade A (HIV-VLP_As).

The HIV-VLP_As induce in Balb/c mice systemic and mucosal neutralizing Antibodies as well as cytotoxic T lymphocytes, by intra-peritoneal as well as intra-nasal administration. Moreover, we have recently shown that the baculovirus-expressed HIV-VLPs induce maturation and activation of monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDCs) which, in turn, produce Th1- and Th2-specific cytokines and stimulate in vitro a primary and secondary response in autologous CD4+ T cells.

In the present manuscript, the effects of the baculovirus-expressed HIV-VLP_As on the genomic transcriptional profile of MDDCs obtained from normal healthy donors have been evaluated. The HIV-VLP_A stimulation, compared to both PBS and LPS treatment, modulate the expression of genes involved in the morphological and functional changes characterizing the MDDCs activation and maturation.

The results of gene profiling analysis here presented are highly informative on the global pattern of gene expression alteration underlying the activation of MDDCs by HIV-VLP_As at the early stages of the immune response and may be extremely helpful for the identification of exclusive activation markers.