Fig. 5. An influenza vaccine adjuvanted with CD8α ALN-1 protects mice against viral infection.

a BALB/c mice were vaccinated i.m. with X47-WIV (15 μg), either alone or combined with SAS adjuvant (15 μg i.m. together with WIV), WT IL-1β (5 μg), CD8α ALN-1, untargeted BcII10 ALN-1, or CD8α hIFNα2 (10 μg i.v. 24 h post WIV). An identical boost treatment was delivered 2 weeks later. A heterosubtypic pH1N1 virus that shares strongly conserved T cell epitopes with X47-WIV was used to infect the mice 2 weeks later (i.n. 2 × LD₅₀). b Change in body weight over time (left) or after nine days of infection (right) of mice challenged i.n. with a high inoculum (2 × LD₅₀) of pH1N1 influenza virus. Data points (left) or bars (right) represent the mean ± s.e.m. of a representative of two independent experiments with n = 6 mice/group. c Kaplan–Meier curve representing survival of mice during pH1N1 influenza virus infection. Data points represent the mean survival (%) ± s.e.m. of a representative of two independent experiments with n = 6 mice/group. ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; ns, p ≥ 0.5 by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons test in b or by log-rank testing in c. Change in body weight (%) over time of virus-infected mice vaccinated with WIV alone (d) or combined with either SAS (e), WT IL-1β (f), CD8α ALN-1 (g), untargeted BcII10 ALN-1 (h), and CD8α hIFNα2 (i).