Humoral immune response elicited by plasmid DNA containing HGV E2 gene fragment.

In order to study the feasibility of E2 gene fragment of hepatitis virus G(HGV) as a component of DNA vaccine against the hepatitis virus G infection, a 559bp DNA fragment encoding HGV E2 was cloned into plasmid pCMV-S from pThioHis-E2 in the same reading frame with HBsAg gene to form a recombinant plasmid named pCMV-S-E2. BALB/c mice of Kunming strain were immunized with purified plasmid DNA of pCMV-S-E2 by intra-muscularly inoculation. The immunizations were boosted twice at an interval of 14 days.