AIDS Vaccine Candidate Filmed In Vivo (VIDEO)

A team of scientists from Inserm and the Institut Pasteur took film in vivio of a potential AIDS vaccine candidate in action, displaying the process it uses to trigger the immune system to respond to the virus. The process had never been viewed before, and allowed the team to see the vaccine in a new light, showing the potential of it to them.

In the study, the vaccine, which recruits immune cells that are needed to defend the body and attack the virus, was administered to healthy mice in order to see how the immune system cells reacted in real time via a powerful, non-invasive microscope. The cells were mobilized to the lymph node, where vaccine response develops, in just a few hours.

The vaccine was developed by the French Vaccine Research Institute along with the ANRS. Watch it in action below.

The vaccine induced inflammasome formation, an assembly of proteins that are highly specifically structured and appear in macrophages, the cells that are first targeted by the vaccine, according to a news release. The inflammasome has "a important role in shaping adaptive immunity" against the vrius, the study says. It pushes the maturation of interleukin, a chemical messenger, but causes macrophage death, which in turn releases interleukin into the lymph node, signaling a chain reaction that brings together several "key players" into the lymph node, including the killer cells.

The film provides detailed pictures of how the vaccine works in its main stages, highlighting the ever important pathway that conducts the mobilization of effective immune response.

"This is the first time that the formation of this original structure, the inflammasome, has been observed in vivo and in real time," Philippe Bousso, an author of the study, said. "Our research demonstrates the potential of the vaccine candidate MVA-HIV to trigger a significant, diverse immune response."

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