DNA-based non-invasive vaccination onto the skin

Non-invasive vaccination onto the skin (NIVS) could improve vaccination programs because the procedure requires no specially trained personnel and may eliminate many problems associated with needle injections. There is also evidence that the efficacy of a skin-targeted vaccine may be optimal when the antigen is expressed within the outer layer that is in constant contact with potential pathogens. We report here that non-invasive gene delivery by pipetting adenovirus- or liposome-complexed plasmid DNA onto the outer layer of skin could achieve localized transgene expression within a restricted subset of skin in mice and the elicitation of an immune response against the protein encoded by the DNA. These results provide a proof of principle that NIVS may appear as a novel method for the administration of DNA-based vaccines.