Enhancement of cell mediated immune responses using lipid depleted lentivirus as immunogen: a novel approach for inducing recognition of new viral epitopes

We tested the hypothesis that removal of viral lipids using diisopropylether can enhance antigenicity of SIVmac251. DIPE delipidation removed cholesterol from SIVmac251 without significant loss of viral protein or RNA. Mice immunized with the same SIV preparation but boosted with delipidated SIVmac251 exhibited significantly broader and higher cellular and humoral immune responses compared to live or AT-2-inactivated virus. As little as 1 μg (total protein) of delipidated virus was sufficient to induce such enhanced immune responses. Thus, solvent treated lentivirus may provide a novel strategy to generate immune responses to additional viral epitopes.