UK researchers produce robust HCV-specific T-cell responses to HCV virus in healthy human subjects...

From Doctors Lounge.com According to a study just published in the journal 'Science Translational Medicine', researchers at the University of Oxford have induced HCV-specific T-cell responses against genotype 1a and 3a hepatitis C viruses using an adenovirus-based vaccine in healthy human subjects. I've been around virology enough to be severely jaded when it comes to effective vaccines for highly-replicative, error-prone viruses, but hope springs eternal despite myself.

 Novel Hepatitis C Vaccine Induces T Cell Responses. In first trial of an adenovirus-based vaccine for HCV, vectors well tolerated and highly immunogenic.

Adenovirus-based vaccines can generate strong, broad, long-lasting, and functional T cell responses against hepatitis C virus in healthy people, according to a study published in the Jan. 4 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

 THURSDAY, Jan. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Adenovirus-based vaccines can generate strong, broad, long-lasting, and functional T cell responses against hepatitis C virus (HCV) in healthy people, according to a study published in the Jan. 4 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

 Eleanor Barnes, M.D., of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and colleagues used a recombinant adenoviral vector strategy in a phase 1 trial of an HCV vaccine in healthy human volunteers. Two adenoviral vectors expressing NS proteins from HCV genotype 1B were constructed based on rare serotypes (human adenovirus 6 and chimpanzee adenovirus 3). The researchers found that both of the vectors primed T cell responses against HCV proteins. The T cell responses targeted multiple proteins and were capable of recognizing heterologous strains (genotypes 1A and 3A). HCV-specific T cells included both CD4+ and CD8+ T cell subsets and secreted interleukin-2, interferon-gamma, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha.

The T cell response could be sustained for at least a year after boosting with the heterologous adenoviral vector. Examination using major histocompatibility complex peptide tetramers revealed T cells (central and effector) that retained polyfunctionality and proliferative capacity.

 "These data indicate that an adenoviral vector strategy can induce sustained T cell responses of a magnitude and quality associated with protective immunity and open the way for studies of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for HCV," the authors write.