Genetic vaccination with Flt3-L and GM-CSF as adjuvants: Enhancement of cellular and humoral immune responses that results in protective immunity in a murine model of hepatitis C virus infection.

Aim: To investigate whether transfection of plasmid DNA encoding these cytokines enhances both humoral and cellular immune responses to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in a murine model.

Methods: We established a tumor model of HCV infection using syngenic mouse myeloma cells stably transfected with NS5. Co-vaccination of DNA encoding granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and Flt-3 ligand together with a plasmid encoding for the HCV NS5 protein was carried out.