Elicitation of strong immune responses by a DNA vaccine expressing a secreted form of hepatitis C virus envelope protein E2 in murine and porcine animal models

Figure 1 Construction and characterization of HCV E2 DNA vaccine. A secreted form of HCV E2 protein generated by removing the carboxyl-terminal hydrophobic region and replacing the hypervariable region 1 with the signal peptide sequence of the tissue plasminogen activator (tPAs) was cloned into a DNA vaccine vector pBISIA24. The construction of E2 DNA vaccine, pBISIA24-tPAs-tE2, is schematically presented. TE 671 cells were transfected with pBISIA24 (lane 1) or pBISIA24-tPAs-tE2 (lanes 2 and 3). Cell lysates (lanes 1 and 2) and culture medium (lane 3) were analyzed in immunoblotting using an E2-specific antibody.