Peptide mimotopes as prototypic templates of broad-spectrum surrogates of carbohydrate antigens.

Peptide mimetics of carbohydrate antigens can function as templates to exploit immune mechanisms to augment vaccine design strategies as they are T cell dependent antigens. In this study we evaluate a peptide mimetic (peptide 105) of the Pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide type 14 (Pn14) as a model antigen to explore differences in antigenicity and immunogenicity of peptide mimotopes. The multiple antigenic peptide (MAP) form, by ELISA, competes with native Pn14 in a concentration-dependent manner for binding to an anti-Pn14 monoclonal antibody. It was observed that peptide priming with a conjugated form (105-BSA) and boosting with Pn14 produced higher levels of Pn14-reactive IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b and IgG3 than priming and boosting with Pn14. This serum also displayed reactivity with multiple serotypes, as assessed by ELISA. However, when compared with serum from humans immunized with the 23-valent pneumococcal vaccines, mimetic-induced mouse serum did not display a significant ability to mediate opsonophagocytic killing of pneumococci. These results suggest the feasibility of designing mimotopes to render effective humoral responses not only to a single serotype of Streptococcus pneumoniae, but to multiple serotypes at once. Such peptides would simplify currently available vaccine approaches, yet highlights the requirement of more extensive polymerization to fully emulate native antigen.     

Self-assembly polymerization enhances the immunogenicity of influenza M2e peptide

The extracellular domain of Influenza M2 protein (M2e) was considered as a promising target for universal influenza vaccine development. Several M2e-based influenza vaccines have been developed and many of them used a mutant M2e peptide, in which the two conserved cysteine residues were substituted by serine residues. In this paper, we compared the antigenicity and immunogenicity of wild type and cysteine-mutant M2e peptides. We found that the cysteine substitution slightly affected the antigenicity of M2e epitope, but greatly reduced the immunogenicity of M2e peptide. The cysteine substitution also disabled the M2e peptide from inducing protection against influenza virus challenge in mice. Further analysis revealed that the immunogenicity of M2e peptide was enhanced by the self-assembly of the peptide through inter-peptide disulfide bonds. These results provide new information to improve the design of M2e-based vaccines against potential influenza pandemics.     

Loss of T cell antigen recognition arising from changes in peptide and major histocompatibility complex protein flexibility: implications for vaccine design

Modification of the primary anchor positions of antigenic peptides to improve binding to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins is a commonly used strategy for engineering peptide-based vaccine candidates. However, such peptide modifications do not always improve antigenicity, complicating efforts to design effective vaccines for cancer and infectious disease. Here we investigated the MART-1(27-35) tumor antigen, for which anchor modification (replacement of the position two alanine with leucine) dramatically reduces or ablates antigenicity with a wide range of T cell clones despite significantly improving peptide binding to MHC. We found that anchor modification in the MART-1(27-35) antigen enhances the flexibility of both the peptide and the HLA-A*0201 molecule. Although the resulting entropic effects contribute to the improved binding of the peptide to MHC, they also negatively impact T cell receptor binding to the peptide·MHC complex. These results help explain how the "anchor-fixing" strategy fails to improve antigenicity in this case, and more generally, may be relevant for understanding the high specificity characteristic of the T cell repertoire. In addition to impacting vaccine design, modulation of peptide and MHC flexibility through changes to antigenic peptides may present an evolutionary strategy for the escape of pathogens from immune destruction.     

G145R突变后乙型肝炎病毒表面抗原在酵母系统的表达及其免疫学特性分析

为了研究乙型肝炎(乙肝)病毒表面抗原(HBsAg)发生G145R突变后的免疫学特性改变情况,首先利用Pichia pastoris酵母表达系统分泌表达G145R突变后的HBsAg的preS2 S(中蛋白),用重组表达产物免疫小鼠,酶联免疫吸附试验(ELISA)和Western blot实验等研究其抗原性和免疫原性与野毒型HBsAg的异同。从150个阳性表达克隆中筛选出一株表达量最高的克隆株MC23,Western blot检测显示,表达的HBsAg中蛋白单体主带分子量在34kD、37kD左右,表达量约为200μg／L。用不同的HBsAg检测试剂检测其抗原性发现,G145R突变后的HBsAg,用绝大多数试剂都不能很好地检出,检出能力只有野毒型HBsAg的50％或更低,但用美国雅培公司的试剂检出能力可达野毒的98％。G145R突变后的HBsAg中蛋白免疫小鼠后,血清中可检测到1：1600的特异性表面抗体,该抗体与G145R突变后的HBsAg“a”决定簇合成肽P2—145R也能发生交叉反应,反应滴度为1：80。但该抗体和野毒型HBsAg蛋白以及野毒“a”决定簇合成肽P1-wt均不反应。上述结果表明,G145R突变后的HBsAg中蛋白在Pichia pastoris酵母系统得到了分泌表达,表达产物仍具有较好的免疫原性,但和野毒HBsAg相比,其抗原性和免疫原性发生了明显改变。     

单纯疱疹病毒I型糖蛋白D胞外区的真核表达及生物学活性分析

单纯疱疹病毒 (Herpes simplex virus,HSV) 包膜糖蛋白D (glycoprotein D,gD) 是HSV的结构蛋白之一,具有重要抗原表位,是目前疫苗研究的热点。为了分离纯化HSV gD1糖蛋白胞外区片段并对其生物学活性进行分析,本研究将化学合成的gD1胞外区基因片段克隆至真核表达载体pCEP4,重组质粒转染HEK293细胞进行瞬时表达,产物经Western blotting检测后用亲和层析法进行分离纯化,ELISA检测其抗原性。以纯化的重组蛋白作为抗原免疫小鼠,ELISA测血清特异性抗体效价以评价其免疫原性。构建的重组质粒经测序显示基因序列完全正确。表达产物的Western blotting分析发现,在相对分子量约46 kDa处有外源蛋白表达,与预期蛋白带一致。用Ni柱得到了纯化的重组gD1蛋白,ELISA检测显示其具有良好的抗原性,免疫小鼠7周后血清中抗体效价达到5×103。重组gD1蛋白的抗原性及免疫原性分析为HSV检测试剂和基因重组亚单位疫苗的研制提供了实验依据。     

New T cell epitopes identified from an anti-idiotypic antibody mimicking ovarian cancer associated antigen

Anti-idiotype (Id) antibodies can be used to induce specific cellular immune responses against tumor antigens, but the mechanism of antigenicity is not always clear. We previously reported an anti-Id antibody, 6B11, which mimics human ovarian cancer associated antigen OC166-9. To explore the molecular basis of cellular immune response induced by 6B11, a panel of peptides derived from complementarity determining region (CDR) of 6B11 were synthesized. After a series of immunologic experiments, we found that the light chain CDR3 peptide and heavy chain CDR3 peptide were the MHC class I and class II epitopes of 6B11, respectively. The combination of MHC class I and class II epitopes is more effective than 6B11 in inducing specific cellular immune response against ovarian cancer. Our study provided the structural basis of antigenicity of 6B11. The identification of antigen-specific T cell eptitopes in 6B11 should facilitate the design of epitope-based vaccine against human ovarian cancer.     

Removal of N-linked glycosylation sites in the V1 region of simian immunodeficiency virus gp120 results in redirection of B-cell responses to V3

One mechanism of immune evasion utilized by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) envelope glycoproteins is the presence of a dense carbohydrate shield. Accumulating evidence from in vitro and in vivo experiments suggests that alterations in N-linked glycosylation of SIV gp120 can enhance host humoral immune responses that may be involved in immune control. The present study was designed to determine the ability of glycosylation mutant viruses to redirect antibody responses to shielded envelope epitopes. The influence of glycosylation on the maturation and specificity of antibody responses elicited by glycosylation mutant viruses containing mutations of specific N-linked sites in and near the V1 and V2 regions of SIVmac239 gp120 was determined. Results from these studies demonstrated a remarkably similar maturation of antibody responses to native, fully glycosylated envelope proteins. However, analyses of antibodies to defined envelope domains revealed that mutation of glycosylation sites in V1 resulted in increased antibody recognition to epitopes in V1. In addition, we demonstrated for the first time that mutation of glycosylation sites in V1 resulted in a redirection of antibody responses to the V3 loop. Taken together, these results demonstrate that N-linked glycosylation is a determinant of SIV envelope B-cell immunogenicity in addition to in vitro antigenicity. In addition, our results demonstrate that the absence of N-linked carbohydrates at specific sites can influence the exposure of epitopes quite distant in the linear sequence.     

Humoral immune response of carp Cyprinus carpio to Myxobolus artus (Myxozoa: Myxobolidae) infection

The circulating antibody which reacted with sonicated spores of Myxobolus artus was detected in some naturally infected carp. However, some other fish had no detectable sign of infection, though they had the antibody. When carp were injected either with intact or sonicated spores, the antibody was not produced, while fish injected either with developing stages (presporogonic and sporoblast stages) of the parasite or sonicated spores with bovine serum albumin elicited the antibody production. The results of the injection experiments suggest that (1) developing stages have antigenicity to carp, and (2) spores have lost the antigenicity; sonicated spores are haptens, with which the antibody can react. In an indirect fluorescent antibody technique, sera positive for the antigen reacted with developing stages of the parasite, but not with the spore.
The mechanism of the host immune response against M. artus is discussed in relation to a previous observation that the parasite sometimes underwent abnormal development, in which host encapsulation was imperfect or even lacking, probably leading to degeneration of pseudocysts before the completion of spore formation. It is plausible that the antibody was produced when pseudocysts which showed abnormal growth ruptured during their developing stages, resulting in exposure of the young parasite to the host immune system.     

Extraction,isolation and analysis of chondroitin sulfate from broiler chicken biomass

This study was undertaken to investigate whether chondroitin sulfate (CS) can be efficiently isolated from broiler chicken by-product from mechanical deboning (BMD), which is a mixture of crushed bone, cartilage, skin, adipose tissue and muscle. With BMD as a starting material, it may be possible to maximize CS production from chicken cartilage. CS was liberated from BMD by proteolysis using proteolytic activities from papain, pancreatin, kiwi fruits and flavourzyme. The final product isolated by anion-exchange chromatography and differential precipitation with varying concentrations of ethanol contained CS-peptides with glucuronosyl-N-acetylgalactosamine-4-sulfate as a predominant disaccharide. All the enzyme sources used had sufficient activities to produce CS-peptides with undetectable amount of glucosamine. However, the size of peptide attaching to CS chain and the antigenicity to anti-keratan sulfate (KS) monoclonal antibody varied among the CS-peptides prepared with different proteinases. Papain digestion resulted in the smallest size of peptide with no detectable antigenicity to the anti-KS antibody. In contrast, pancreatin digestion provided CS-peptide having a very weak but positive antigenicity to the anti-KS antibody, which was much lower than that seen with CS-peptide prepared with kiwi fruit proteinase or flavourzyme. Pancreatin is suggested as an economical source of proteinase to liberate CS-peptides from BMD.     

Comparing antigenicity and immunogenicity of engineered gp120

We have engineered monomeric gp120 in such a way as to favorably present the conserved epitope for the broadly neutralizing antibody b12 while lowering the exposure of epitopes recognized by some weakly neutralizing and nonneutralizing antibodies. The work presented here describes the immune response in rabbits immunized with two prototype, engineered gp120s to explore the relationship between antigenicity and immunogenicity for these mutants. The GDMR gp120 mutant (residues 473 to 476 on gp120 altered from GDMR to AAAA) has a series of substitutions on the edge of the CD4 binding site (CD4bs), and the mCHO gp120 mutant has seven extra glycans relative to the wild-type protein. Importantly, serum mapping showed that both mutants did not elicit antibodies against a number of epitopes that had been targeted for dampening. The sera from rabbits immunized with the GDMR gp120 mutant neutralized some primary viruses at levels somewhat better than the wild-type gp120 immune sera as a result of an increased elicitation of anti-V3 antibodies. Unlike wild-type gp120 immune sera, GDMR gp120 immune sera failed to neutralize HXBc2, a T-cell line adapted (TCLA) virus. This was associated with loss of CD4bs/CD4-induced antibodies that neutralize TCLA but not primary viruses. The mCHO gp120 immune sera did not neutralize primary viruses to any significant degree, reflecting the masking of epitopes of even weakly neutralizing antibodies without eliciting b12-like antibodies. These results show that antibody responses to multiple epitopes on gp120 can be dampened. More precise focusing to a neutralizing epitope will likely require several iterations comparing antigenicity and immunogenicity of engineered proteins.     

Immunogenicity of Membrane-bound HIV-1 gp41 Membrane-proximal External Region (MPER) Segments Is Dominated by Residue Accessibility and Modulated by Stereochemistry

Structural characterization of epitope-paratope pairs has contributed to the understanding of antigenicity. By contrast, few structural studies relate to immunogenicity, the process of antigen-induced immune responses in vivo. Using a lipid-arrayed membrane-proximal external region (MPER) of HIV-1 glycoprotein 41 as a model antigen, we investigated the influence of physicochemical properties on immunogenicity in relation to structural modifications of MPER/liposome vaccines. Anchoring the MPER to the membrane via an alkyl tail or transmembrane domain retained the MPER on liposomes in vivo, while preserving MPER secondary structure. However, structural modifications that affected MPER membrane orientation and antigenic residue accessibility strongly impacted induced antibody responses. The solvent-exposed MPER tryptophan residue (Trp-680) was immunodominant, focusing immune responses, despite sequence variability elsewhere. Nonetheless, immunogenicity could be readily manipulated using site-directed mutagenesis or structural constraints to modulate amino acid surface display. These studies provide fundamental insights for immunogen design aimed at targeting B cell antibody responses.     

POPI: predicting immunogenicity of MHC class I binding peptides by mining informative physicochemical properties

MOTIVATION: Both modeling of antigen-processing pathway including major histocompatibility complex (MHC) binding and immunogenicity prediction of those MHC-binding peptides are essential to develop a computer-aided system of peptide-based vaccine design that is one goal of immunoinformatics. Numerous studies have dealt with modeling the immunogenic pathway but not the intractable problem of immunogenicity prediction due to complex effects of many intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Moderate affinity of the MHC-peptide complex is essential to induce immune responses, but the relationship between the affinity and peptide immunogenicity is too weak to use for predicting immunogenicity. This study focuses on mining informative physicochemical properties from known experimental immunogenicity data to understand immune responses and predict immunogenicity of MHC-binding peptides accurately. RESULTS: This study proposes a computational method to mine a feature set of informative physicochemical properties from MHC class I binding peptides to design a support vector machine (SVM) based system (named POPI) for the prediction of peptide immunogenicity. High performance of POPI arises mainly from an inheritable bi-objective genetic algorithm, which aims to automatically determine the best number m out of 531 physicochemical properties, identify these m properties and tune SVM parameters simultaneously. The dataset consisting of 428 human MHC class I binding peptides belonging to four classes of immunogenicity was established from MHCPEP, a database of MHC-binding peptides (Brusic et al., 1998). POPI, utilizing the m = 23 selected properties, performs well with the accuracy of 64.72% using leave-one-out cross-validation, compared with two sequence alignment-based prediction methods ALIGN (54.91%) and PSI-BLAST (53.23%). POPI is the first computational system for prediction of peptide immunogenicity based on physicochemical properties. AVAILABILITY: A web server for prediction of peptide immunogenicity (POPI) and the used dataset of MHC class I binding peptides (PEPMHCI) are available at http://iclab.life.nctu.edu.tw/POPI     

Epitope-based immunoinformatics approach on RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) protein complex of Nipah virus (NiV)

Persistent outbreaks of Nipah virus (NiV) with severe case fatality throw a major challenge on researchers to develop a drug or vaccine to combat the disease. With little knowledge of its molecular mechanisms, we utilized the proteome data of NiV to evaluate the potency of three major proteins (phosphoprotein, polymerase, and nucleocapsid protein) in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase complex to count as a possible candidate for epitope-based vaccine design. Profound computational analysis was used on the above proteins individually to explore the T-cell immune properties like antigenicity, immunogenicity, binding to major histocompatibility complex class I and class II alleles, conservancy, toxicity, and population coverage. Based on these predictions the peptide ‘ELRSELIGY’ of phosphoprotein and ‘YPLLWSFAM’ of nulceocapsid protein were identified as the best-predicted T-cell epitopes and molecular docking with human leukocyte antigen-C (HLA-C*12:03) molecule was effectuated followed by validation with molecular dynamics simulation. The B-cell epitope predictions suggest that the sequence positions 421 to 471 in phosphoprotein, 606 to 640 in polymerase and 496 to 517 in nucleocapsid protein are the best-predicted regions for B-cell immune response. However, the further experimental circumstance is required to test and validate the efficacy of the subunit peptide for potential candidacy against NiV.     

Antibody responses against flagellin in mice orally immunized with attenuated Salmonella vaccine strains

Salmonella fIagellin has been repeatedly used as a carrier for heterologous peptide epitopes either as a parenterally delivered purified antigen or as a parenterally/orally-administered, flagellated, live, attenuated vaccine. Nonetheless, the ability to induce specific antibody responses against the flagellin moiety, fused or not with heterologous peptide, has not usually been reported in mice orally inoculated with a live, attenuated, flagellated Salmonella strain. In this work we evaluated the immunogenicity of flagellin in mice following oral inoculation with an aroA Salmonella enterica serovar Dublin SL5929 strain, which expressed plasmid-encoded recombinant hybrid flagellin fused to the CTP3 epitope (amino acids 50–64) of cholera toxin B-subunit. In contrast to parenterally immunized mice, no significant CTP3- or flagellin-specific antibody responses either in sera (IgG) or feces (IgA) were detected following repeated oral delivery of the recombinant Salmonella strain to C57BL/6 mice. Similarly, flagellin-specific antibody responses were also not detected in mice immunized with strain SL5930, which expressed a nonhybrid flagellin. The lack of flagellin-specific antibody responses was not associated with deficient Peyer patch colonization or spleen invasion. Moreover, stabilization of the flagellin-coding gene by integration into the host chromosome did not significantly improve flagellin-specific antibody responses following administration by the oral route. Taken together, these results suggest that flagellin does not represent an efficient peptide carrier for activation of antibody responses in mice orally immunized with live, attenuated Salmonella strains. Received: 29 December 1998 / Accepted: 3 May 1999     

Synthetic peptide vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease. I. Duration of the immune response and priming in guinea-pigs, rabbits and mice

The immunogenicity of two aphthovirus-specific synthetic peptides was investigated. One peptide copied the sequence of amino acids 141 to 160 from the capsid VP1 of the aphthovirus strains O1 BFS 1860 and O1 Kaufbeuren (O peptide), the other copied the equivalent sequence from aphthovirus strain A24 Cruzeiro (A peptide). Peptide coupled to keyhole limpet haemocyanin (KLH) stimulated a long-lasting immune response in guinea-pigs and rabbits. Significant levels of antibody were detectable at least one year after vaccination, although the reactivity of the antibody depended on the species and the peptide used. In some circumstances the peptides were able to prime the immune system such that a subsequent dose of peptide boosted antibody production. This effect, also, was dependent on the species of experimental animal and on the peptide used, an observation which has important implications for the use of such peptides as vaccines.     

Engineering of papaya mosaic virus (PapMV) nanoparticles through fusion of the HA11 peptide to several putative surface-exposed sites

Papaya mosaic virus has been shown to be an efficient adjuvant and vaccine platform in the design and improvement of innovative flu vaccines. So far, all fusions based on the PapMV platform have been located at the C-terminus of the PapMV coat protein. Considering that some epitopes might interfere with the self-assembly of PapMV CP when fused at the C-terminus, we evaluated other possible sites of fusion using the influenza HA11 peptide antigen. Two out of the six new fusion sites tested led to the production of recombinant proteins capable of self assembly into PapMV nanoparticles; the two functional sites are located after amino acids 12 and 187. Immunoprecipitation of each of the successful fusions demonstrated that the HA11 epitope was located at the surface of the nanoparticles. The stability and immunogenicity of the PapMV-HA11 nanoparticles were evaluated, and we could show that there is a direct correlation between the stability of the nanoparticles at 37°C (mammalian body temperature) and the ability of the nanoparticles to trigger an efficient immune response directed towards the HA11 epitope. This strong correlation between nanoparticle stability and immunogenicity in animals suggests that the stability of any nanoparticle harbouring the fusion of a new peptide should be an important criterion in the design of a new vaccine.     

Recombinant human IL-2 overcomes genetic nonresponsiveness to malaria sporozoite peptides. Correlation of effect with biologic activity of IL-2

Current malaria vaccine strategies focus on subunit vaccines that contain one or a limited number of malaria Ag. However, there is widespread nonresponsiveness to many of these Ag probably resulting from Ir gene control. Using a congenic mouse model, we demonstrated that human rIL-2 (as an adjuvant) can overcome Ir gene controlled low immune responsiveness to peptide malaria Ag vaccine candidates [R32tet32, R32LR, and Th2R-NP (NANP)5NA] as determined by the antibody response, providing it is emulsified with the Ag during immunization. This effect is not caused by IL-2 merely acting as a foreign protein and stimulating noncognate help; it requires biologic activity of the IL-2, as determined by studying the effect of inactive rIL-2, which has minimal biologic activity but which has retained its antigenicity. IL-2 does not appear to be working by an effect on priming of specific Th, and IL-2 cannot overcome an Ir gene controlled low T cell proliferative response. IL-2 may have a role to play in human vaccine development where a high titer antibody response to a subunit vaccine is required.     

Self-adjuvanting vaccine against group A streptococcus: Application of fibrillized peptide and immunostimulatory lipid as adjuvant

Peptides are of great interest to be used as vaccine antigens due to their safety, ease of manufacturing and specificity in generating immune response. There have been massive discoveries of peptide antigens over the past decade. However, peptides alone are poorly immunogenic, which demand co-administration with strong adjuvant to enhance their immunogenicity. Recently, fibril-forming peptides such as Q11 and lipoamino acid-based carrier have been identified to induce substantial immune responses when covalently linked to peptide epitope. In this study, we have incorporated either Q11 or lipoamino acids to a peptide epitope (J14) derived from M protein of group A streptococcus to develop self-adjuvanting vaccines. J14, Q11 and lipoamino acids were also conjugated together in a single vaccine construct in an attempt to evaluate the synergy effect of combining multiple adjuvants. Physicochemical characterization demonstrated that the vaccine constructs folded differently and self-assembled into nanoparticles. Significantly, only vaccine constructs containing double copies of lipoamino acids (regardless in conjugation with Q11 or not) were capable to induce significant dendritic cells uptake and subsequent J14-specific antibody responses in non-sizes dependent manners. Q11 had minimal impact in enhancing the immunogenicity of J14 even when it was used in combination with lipoamino acids. These findings highlight the impact of lipoamino acids moiety as a promising immunostimulant carrier and its number of attachment to peptide epitope was found to have a profound effect on the vaccine immunogenicity.     

真核细胞表达单纯疱疹病毒I型包膜糖蛋白B及其抗原性与免疫原性分析

为在真核细胞中表达并纯化I型单纯疱疹病毒（HSV I）包膜糖蛋白gB,并分析其抗原性和免疫原性,化学合成了包膜糖蛋白gB1胞外区基因片段,构建真核表达载体,并转染至HEK293细胞,表达的蛋白用羊抗HSV1+HSV2血清作为一抗,用ELISA检测其抗原性;用纯化的gB1蛋白免疫昆明小鼠,观察诱发抗体产生的时间及其效价,并用ELISA和Western blot检测小鼠抗gB1多克隆抗体特异性识别重组gB1抗原的能力,评价其免疫原性。结果显示在HEK293细胞中成功表达重组gB1蛋白,ELISA证实羊抗HSV1+HSV2多抗能够识别重组gB1蛋白;重组gB1蛋白免疫小鼠7周后,小鼠血清中多克隆抗体效价达到5×103,表明在真核细胞中高效表达并纯化的重组gB1蛋白具有良好的抗原性和免疫原性,为HSV检测试剂和疫苗研究提供了理论基础。