Adjuvant can play an important role in vaccine formulation by aiding in the development of a robust immune response. In our hybridoma development work, we typically use both Freund's and AddaVax™ adjuvant regimens for mouse immunizations. While we have repeatedly shown success with our protocols, we continually seek to improve upon the titer and affinity of the serum antibody response. To that end, we evaluated the use of CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG-DNA), a B cell stimulant, in our adjuvant regimens. Mice were immunized using our standard Freund's protocol (Adjulite Complete Freund's Adjuvant for the primary immunization followed by Adjulite Incomplete Freund's Adjuvant (AIFA) for all additional immunizations) or a test protocol using AIFA supplemented with CpG-DNA for all immunizations. A second group of mice were immunized with antigen emulsified in AddaVax adjuvant alone or AddaVax supplemented with CpG-DNA. Our results show a trend toward a higher titer response when CpG-DNA was used with either adjuvant. In addition, AIFA+CpG-DNA mice trended toward a higher relative affinity versus mice immunized using our standard Freund's methodology. Additional antigens will need to be studied to determine whether these observations are limited to the proteins (antigens) studied or whether this is a generalized response to any immunogen.
Keywords: AddaVax; CpG-DNA; Freund's; adjuvant; affinity.