Safety and immunogenicity of a novel therapeutic DNA vaccine encoding chicken type II collagen for rheumatoid arthritis in normal rats.

Current clinically available treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) fail to cure the disease or unsatisfactorily halt disease progression. To overcome these limitations, the development of therapeutic DNA vaccines and boosters may offer new promising strategies. Because type II collagen (CII) as a critical autoantigen in RA and native chicken type II collagen (nCCII) has been used to effectively treat RA, we previously developed a novel therapeutic DNA vaccine encoding CCII (pcDNA-CCOL2A1) with efficacy comparable to that of the current "gold standard", methotrexate(MTX).

Evaluation of humoral and cellular immune responses to a DNA vaccine encoding chicken type II collagen for rheumatoid arthritis in normal rats.

A major challenge in the development of effective therapies for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is finding a method for the specific inhibition of the inflammatory disease processes without the induction of generalized immunosuppression. Of note, the development of therapeutic DNA vaccines and boosters that may restore immunological tolerance remains a high priority. pcDNA-CCOL2A1 is a therapeutic DNA vaccine encoding chicken type II collagen(CCII).

Construction and characterization of a novel DNA vaccine that is potent antigen-specific tolerizing therapy for experimental arthritis by increasing CD4+CD25+Treg cells and inducing Th1 to Th2 shift in both cells and cytokines.

Currently available treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are often ineffective in ameliorating the progression of disease, particularly the invasive destruction of articular cartilage and bone, and RA remains incurable. Therefore, vaccinotherapy of RA with an antigen-specific tolerizing DNA vaccine may offer new promise for overcoming this difficulty. Using recombinant technology, the DNA sequences encoding chicken type II collagen (CCOL2A1) with deleted N-propeptides were obtained from the plasmid pPIC9K/pCalpha(1)(II), and then cloned into pcDNA3.

A novel recombinant peptide containing only two T-cell tolerance epitopes of chicken type II collagen that suppresses collagen-induced arthritis.

Immunotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using oral-dosed native chicken or bovine type II collagen (nCII) to induce specific immune tolerance is an attractive strategy. However, the majority of clinical trials of oral tolerance in human diseases including RA in recent years have been disappointing. Here, we describe a novel recombinant peptide rcCTE1-2 which contains only two tolerogenic epitopes (CTE1 and CTE2) of chicken type II collagen (cCII).