Formulation of hepatitis B vaccine in MF59 adjuvant and comparison of its immunization with Iran\'s commercial hepatitis B vaccine

Introduction: Hepatitis is a systemic diseasethat causes liver inflammation. The prevention of this infection is a vaccination. The commonly used vaccine to fight this disease is to use the vaccine formulated with Alum. This vaccine cannot provide immune response and complete productivity in some people. In this study, cellular and humoral immune responses of hepatitis B vaccine were compared with hepatitis B vaccine formulated in MF59 adjuvant. Methods: In this experimental study, Balb/c mice received different formulations of the vaccine subcutaneously three times with a two-week interval. Then, the mice were bled and the levels of anti-HBs Ag were determined by the ELISA method. IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-2 and IFN-γ / IL-4 cytokines were examined by the ELISA method from the soup of spleen cells culture. The data were analyzed using the GraphPad prism software ANOVA. Results: IL-4 levels were significantly higher in alum vaccine than the vaccine formulated in MF59, also the IFN-γ cytokine level showed no significant difference between two main groups. TNF-α cytokine shows that alum vaccine is more secreted due to the high inflammation compared with the vaccine with MF59. Total antibody in the third injection, in some dilutions of the commercial vaccine was more than vaccine with MF59. Conclusion: Significant decrease in IL-4 and antibodies indicates that the tendency of vaccine formulated in MF59 to induce cellular immune responses is higher than humoral immune responses. In addition, the safety and lack of side effects of the MF59 adjuvant can also be considered as another advantage.