DNA Vaccine Dosing
Aldevron, which seems like an awesome company, is giving away free samples of 2µg of DNA vaccine. I could grow that up to make more of course, but how much DNA do I actually need to inject to elicit a reasonable humoral response? The answer is not straightforward. Wikipedia says the following:
Saline injections require variable amounts of DNA, from 10μg-1 mg, whereas gene gun deliveries require 100 to 1000 times less DNA than intramuscular saline injection to raise an effective immune response. Generally, 0.2μg to 20μg are required, although quantities as low as 16ng have been reported.
One paper on DNA tattooing used 50μg of DNA per injection.
For DNA vaccines, it seems like more DNA is always better. Thankfully, 500μg of DNA is a reasonable amount of DNA to grow up since, for example, this Qiagen Plasmid Maxi Kit or this PureLink HiPure Plasmid Maxiprep Kit each yield 500μg.