Fig 3. T-cell responses following Ad35-TBS and Ad26-TBS immunotherapy.

At week 4, baseline IFN-γ production following stimulation with CD4 and CD8 peptides to Ag85A and CD8 peptides to Ag85B were measured by ELISpot prior to randomization (refer to Fig 1). At week 4, animals in the NC-T4 and TV Ad35+ have not been randomized and are identical to one another. Immediately following randomization at week 4 into the respective groups, immunotherapy was administered via intramuscular injection to the TV Ad35+ animals with 10¹⁰ viral particles of Ad35-TBS which was boosted at week 8. At week 16, baseline immune responses were measured in the TV Ad35+ group prior to randomization into TV Ad26+ and TV Ad26- groups. The TV Ad26+ animals then received heterologous boosting with 10¹⁰ viral particles of Ad26-TBS at week 16 whilst the TV Ad26- received empty Ad26 vector as control. p-values were calculated two weeks after each immunotherapy (weeks 6 and 10) and are detailed in Table 2 (n = 5 at each time point for all groups). Lines depict geometric mean. Boosting with Ad26-TBS resulted in significant heightening of CD8 responses to Ag85A (p = 0.01, t-test) and Ag85B (p = 0.01, t-test) at week 18 compared to week 16 that was not observed for CD4 responses to Ag85A (NS = not significant, p = 0.66, t-test). SFU = splenocyte forming units.