The preventive effect of adjuvant-free administration of TNF-PADRE autovaccine on collagen-II-induced rheumatoid arthritis in mice.

Adjuvants are necessary to elicit high titers of antibodies in vaccine-immunization procedures. We previously developed a mouse tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) autovaccine (mTNF-PADRE) capable of inducing anti-TNF-alpha antibodies. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic effect of adjuvant-free administration of the autovaccine on collagen-type-II-induced rheumatoid arthritis (CIA) in mice. Our results showed that the vaccine could ameliorate the symptoms of CIA in mice. In addition, this study suggests that it is possible to control the antibody levels in mice immunized with mTNF-PADRE without adjuvant.