Methods and compositions for inducing an immune response using conserved element constructs

Abstract

The invention provides methods and compositions for eliciting broad immune responses to HIV envelope proteins. The methods include use of nucleic acids constructs that encode conserved elements of HIV Env to induce immune responses.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATING APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 161,123, filed May 13, 2015; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 241,599, filed Oct. 14, 2015; each of which applications is herein incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Sequence diversity and immunodominance are major obstacles in the design of an effective vaccine against HIV. A vaccine that can induce cross-clade specific immune responses is sought. One approach to achieving robust cross-clade immune responses is the use of conserved element (CE) vaccines (see, e.g., WO 2012 / 062873 and WO 2013 / 131099) that can serve as a “universal” vaccine in that it is able to induce immune responses to most or all circulating strains of a virus. It was additionally determined that improved immune responses to highly conserved regions were obtained using a prime-boost vaccine regimen that included CE prime followed by boost with a vector expressi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0003]In one aspect, the present disclosure provides an improvement to methods for inducing an immune response using a nucleic acid CE immunogenic composition, which comprises one or more nucleic acids encoding one or more CE polypeptides, where the method comprises administering one or more CE nucleic acid constructs to a patient as a prime follow by co-administration of the CE nucleic acid immunogen(s) with an immunogenic composition co

Problems solved by technology

Sequence diversity and immunodominance are major obsta

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