DNA Vaccine Treatment in Dogs Experimentally Infected with Trypanosoma cruzi

Table 1

Study design for dogs experimentally infected with T. cruzi and treated with DNA vaccine containing the genes encoding a trans-sialidase protein (pBCSP), an amastigote-specific glycoprotein (pBCSSP4), or both as a mixture.

Group	Group description ()	Plasmid used as immunotherapy
Healthy	Control noninfected/nontreated ()	None
Infected/SS mock-treated	Positive control of infection with saline solution mock-treated ()	None
pBCSSP4	Infected and pBCSSP4 plasmid-treated ()	Construct derived from the pBK-CMV vector with T. cruzi amastigote-specific glycoprotein TcSSP4 gene
pBCSP	Infected and pBCSP plasmid-treated ()	Construct derived from the pBK-CMV vector with T. cruzi trans-sialidase TcSP gene
Mixture	Infected and treated with both the pBCSSP4 and pBCSP plasmids ()	pBCSSP4 and pBCSP plasmids carrying both genes
pBK-CMV	Infected and empty cloning vector plasmid-treated ()	Empty vector control of the plasmid DNA

The pBCSSP4, pBCSP, mixture, and pBK-CMV groups were treated thrice at 15-day intervals 15 days after the infection; SS was administered under this same scheme in the infected/SS mock-treated group.