Immunization with a murine cytomegalovirus based vector encoding retrovirus envelope confers strong protection from Friend retrovirus challenge infection
Fig 5
Antibody response to MCMV.env immunization.
CB6F1 mice were immunized with MCMV.env, or a non-transgene-encoding control MCMV, either once, or twice in a three-week time interval. Binding antibody responses were analysed two weeks after the first immunization (A) and five weeks after the first immunization (C). Neutralizing antibody responses were analysed ten days after FV challenge infection in the early challenge setting (B), five weeks after the first immunization in the late-challenge setting (D) or ten days after infection in the late-challenge setting (E). (F) Spearman ranked correlation analysis showing ranked spleen viral loads shown in Figs 3D and 4D and ranked neutralizing antibody titers shown in (B) and (E). Dots representing identical rank values were off-set for visualization, but analysis of correlation was performed with original, identical values. Each dot indicates an individual mouse, columns indicate median values, dotted lines indicate the limits of detection, grey lines indicate the 95% confidence interval. Data were obtained in two (A, C, D: MCMV), three (B; A, C, D: MCMV.envsingle,late) or five independent experiments (A, C, D: MCMV.envtwice; unvaccinated). Statistically significant differences compared to unvaccinated mice are indicated by *, significant differences compared to mice vaccinated with the MCMV control vector are indicated by # (P < 0.05, One Way ANOVA on Ranks, Dunn’s post test).