1. Vaccine. 2009 Jul 9;27(32):4272-7. Epub 2009 May 29.

Skin-specific promoters for genetic immunisation by DNA electroporation.

Vandermeulen G, Richiardi H, Escriou V, Ni J, Fournier P, Schirrmacher V,
Scherman D, Préat V.

Université Catholique de Louvain, Unité de Pharmacie Galénique, UCL7320, 1200
Brussels, Belgium.

This study aimed at restricting expression of DNA vaccine to specific cell types 
by using skin-specific promoters (i) to contribute to the understanding of the
mechanism of intradermal DNA vaccines and (ii) to address safety concerns
associated with DNA vaccines. The expression and immune response after delivery
of plasmids encoding luciferase by intradermal DNA electroporation were assessed.
Two ubiquitous promoters, CMV and CAG, and three tissue-specific promoters were
studied. Keratin 14 promoter restricts gene expression to keratinocytes of the
epidermal basal layer, CD11c promoter to dendritic cells and fascin promoter only
to mature dendritic cells. The use of plasmids with tissue-specific promoter
resulted in significant, but very low protein expression, as compared to that
obtained with ubiquitous promoter plasmids. Immunisation with both ubiquitous
promoter plasmids elicited humoral and cellular anti-luciferase immune response. 
No immune response was observed after delivery of CD11c plasmid while fascin and 
keratin 14 plasmids induced IFN-gamma response suggesting that the targeting of
skin-specific cells could be a suitable approach but only for the treatment of
pathologies or pathogens requiring mainly cellular and not humoral immune
response.

PMID: 19450641 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]