Development of DNA vaccines as an anti-hypertensive therapy or for anti-angiogenesis

Abstract

Introduction: Vaccines are used as preventive medicine for infectious diseases worldwide; however, several recent studies have indicated the potential of therapeutic vaccines for managing Alzheimer’s disease or hypertension.

Areas covered: The concept and history of therapeutic vaccines for hypertension are introduced. The improvement of drug compliance associated with vaccines in hypertensive patients may assist in better control of blood pressure, leading to reduced complications. Recently, groups have attempted to develop a therapeutic vaccine against hypertension. The vaccine-induced anti-angiotensin II antibodies can efficiently ameliorate high blood pressure. DNA vaccines have also been designed via a similar strategy using a plasmid vector encoding a hepatitis B core (HBc)-angiotensin II fusion protein. The immunogenic molecule (i.e., HBc) is used to provide an antigen that supports the activation of T cells in this DNA vaccine system. The platform technology can also be applied to generate a VEGF vaccine for cancer.

Expert opinion: To date, several clinical studies of DNA vaccines have been conducted, but their effectiveness has not been determined. We hope that the novel concept of DNA vaccines will contribute to promoting health and medicine in the future.

Keywords:

• angiotensin II
• hypertension
• vaccine
• VEGF

Declaration of interest

The Department of Clinical Gene Therapy is financially supported by AnGes MG, Novartis, Shionogi, Boehringer and Rohto. The Division of Vascular Medicine and Epigenetics is financially supported by Bayer. RM is a founder of AnGes MG and is a stockholder. HN was partially supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Notes

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