Immunogenicity of recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara Viruses (rMVA) expressing HIV-1 Indian subtype C gag-protease and env-gp120 genes in mice.

India has currently an estimated 5.1 million HIV-infected individuals, and almost 95%of them are infected with subtype C strain. Therefore, it is imperative that a vaccine from locally circulating Indian HIV-1 subtype C be developed which would induce a robust immune response in the recipients. In this study, recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara Viruses (rMVA) expressing Indian HIV-1 subtype C envelope and core proteins were tested for their immunogenicity in the Balb/C murine model. Mice were immunized with two doses (10(7) pfu/dose) of recombinant MVA constructs intradermally. Both the constructs produced high levels of antibodies against gag and envelope gp120 and also elicited broad based as well as robust cell mediated immune response as evaluated by IFN-gamma ELISpot assay. These epitopes were distributed through out the length of gag and envelope gp120 proteins.