Codon-optimized genes that enable increased heterologous expression in mammalian cells and elicit efficient immune responses in mice after vaccination of naked DNA.

Many of the problems related with mammalian gene expression, such as low translation efficiency and mRNA halflife, can be solved by means of a rational gene design, based on modern bioinformatics, followed by the de novo generation of a synthetic gene. Moreover, high expression rates and prolonged mRNA stability are not only crucial for heterologous mammalian expression, but, in particular, are important for the generation of effective DNA vaccines. In this chapter we show that an optimized synthetic gene encoding the HIV-1 Pr55gag outperforms wild-type gene driven expression by several orders of magnitude. RNA analysis revealed that this positive effect was mostly due to increased mRNA stability of the optimized transcripts. Moreover, mice vaccinated with the optimized gag gene elicited a much stronger immune response against Pr55gag than the control groups immunized with the respective wild-type gene.