Prime–boost immunization with poxvirus or adenovirus vectors as a strategy to develop a protective vaccine for HIV-1

Abstract

Challenges in the development of an effective HIV-1 vaccine are myriad with significant hurdles posed by viral diversity, the lack of a human correlate of protection and difficulty in creating immunogens capable of eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies. The implicit requirement for novel approaches to these problems has resulted in vaccine candidates designed to elicit cellular and/or humoral immune responses, to include recombinant DNA, viral and bacterial vectors, and subunit proteins. Here, we review data from clinical studies primarily of poxvirus and adenovirus vector vaccines, used in a heterologous prime–boost combination strategy. Currently, this strategy appears to hold the most promise for an effective vaccine based on results from immunogenicity testing and nonhuman primate challenge models, as well as the modest efficacy recently observed in the Thai prime–boost trial.

Keywords::

• DNA
• HIV-1
• vaccine
• vector
• virus

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors received funding from the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), and its Cooperative Agreement (DAMD17-98-2-7007) with the Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense or the US Government. 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 apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.