A representative example from one donor is shown in Fig. 2A. Individual tetanus (T) and diphtheria (D) peptides showed limited GSK2118436 in vivo induction of CD4 + CD45RAlowCD62L+ cells expressing IFN-γ compared to a non-stimulated (NS) control (0.04% and 0.08% vs. 0.01% respectively). The chimeric peptide with no cleavage site (TD) and the peptide with the kvsvr cathepsin cleavage site (TkD) showed slightly more cells expressing IFN-γ (0.32%). However the peptide with the pmglp cathespsin cleavage site (TpD) induced a superior response (1.28%), 4-fold higher than the chimeric peptide with

no cleavage site. We went on to analyze PBMC from 20 donors (Fig. 2B) and found that we could not detect a specific response in most cases using either individual T (2/20 donors) or D (7/20 donors)

peptides. More donors responded to the chimeric TD peptide (15/20) but all 20 donors showed a recall response to the TpD chimeric peptide. The percentage of CD4 + CD45RAlowCD62L+ cells expressing IFN-γ normalized to a non-stimulated control for each of the peptides is shown in Fig. 2B. In addition to providing the highest percentage of responders, the TpD peptide induced the highest levels of IFN-γ among all peptides tested. Interestingly TkD had diminished activity compared to TpD, suggesting that the kvsvr cleavage site may be detrimental. We next evaluated the type of memory cells stimulated by TpD. Central memory cells, thought to be the most effective at generating a recall response, are CD4 + CD45RAlowCD45RO + CD27 + CCR7+ [27] and express multiple cytokines including

IFN-γ and TNF-α [4], whereas effector memory cells are CD4 + CD45RAlowCD45RO+/−CD27-CCR7-. BMS-354825 manufacturer Multicolor flow cytometry analysis suggested that the cells responding to TpD express a phenotype of central memory T cells (Fig. 2C). We next addressed if the memory cells favored a Th1 or Th2 phenotype upon activation. Memory T cells can be divided based on differential chemokine receptor expression into subsets that will produce either the Th1 cytokine IFN-γ, or Th2 cytokine IL-4, on activation [28] and [29]. We analyzed four separate donors and found that individual T and D peptides, as well as chimeric peptides induced expression of IFN-γ in more memory T cells than IL-4, suggesting a bias toward a Th1 subset (Fig. 2D). Based on these characteristics TpD was selected as the Oxymatrine memory T helper stimulating peptide for a nanoparticle based vaccine. PLGA/PLA nanoparticles have been useful vehicles for vaccine development. We designed a nanoparticle vaccine carrying nicotine as the B cell antigen (Fig. 3). The components of the nanoparticle include: PLA-PEG-Nicotine, which is a block copolymer with nicotine covalently bound to the free end of PLA-PEG; the adjuvant R848 linked to PLGA, and the memory T cell helper antigen TpD (Fig. 3). To assess the contribution of TpD, nanoparticles were also generated that lacked TpD. As an initial test for efficacy, we immunized mice with nanoparticles containing or lacking TpD (Fig. 4).