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Introduction Developing vaccines against influenza virus infection is complicated by the high diversity of viral envelope proteins: they are constantly object to antigenic drift (mutations ) and antigenic shift (reassortment of genes originating from different host species). In contrast, the internal nuclear protein of influenza virus is highly conserved. In 1993 it was known that cytotoxic T cells in both mice and humans are capable of recognizing epitopes derived from internal viral proteins and that they are also important in protective immune responses. Now, the idea for establishing a new method is to inject cDNA encoding a highly conserved internal protein of influenza virus into muscle tissue of mice in order to produce targets presenting these highly conserved epitopes. After working through this topic you should be able to explain - the advantages of DNA-vaccination compared to conventional vaccination - how DNA vaccination is carried out The method  Related paper Ulmer J, Donelly JJ et al. 1993. Heterologous Protection Against Influenza by Injection of DNA encoding a Viral Protein. Science Mar 19; 259: 1745-49 |
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