Application of α-Tocopherol in the Hepatitis B Vaccine Formulation in order to Improve Humoral and Cellular Immune Responses

The common hepatitis B vaccination was designed based on alum adjuvant. This adjuvant is failed to stimulate cellular immunity so that, optimization is necessary for better stimulation of cellular immune responses. α--tocopherol is a key component of vitamin E that is considered as immunomodulatory agent to regulate immunity in order to decrease inflammation immune responses. Therefore, in the present study, the effect of α-tocopherol on the improvement of immune responses in hepatitis B vaccination was evaluated.

commercial hepatitis B vaccine was formulated with α-tocopherol at the doses of 1, 5, and 10mg. The vaccine was injected into BALB/C mice three times two weeks apart. Ten days after the last injection, blood-drawing was performed from mice groups. The levels of IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-4, and IL-2 cytokines and IgG total antibody, as well as IgG1 and IgG2a antibody isotypes, were measured by ELISA method.

Formulated vaccine at the dose of 10mg of α-tocopherol is more potent in the significant increase of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2 cytokines and low dose result in improvement of humoral immune response.

Immune response of vaccine formulated with α-tocopherol was dose-dependent and at the dose of 10mg demonstrated a significant increase of Th1 response and at the dose of 1mg result in increase of antibody responses.