A promising approach to protect susceptible individuals against severe diseases is the inoculation of plasmids. Such DNA vaccines against influenza virus infections were quite efficient in different animal models; but still this procedure is not in clinical use until today. The present study reports the generation and characterization of bicistronic plasmids which enables the expression of influenza A virus gene sequences together with immunostimulatory cytokines demonstrating that among these cytokines especially interleukin-2 (IL-2) was efficient to prevent a lethal influenza virus infection in mice.
Copyright 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.