Assessment of Crosslinkers between Peptide Antigen and Carrier Protein for Fusion Peptide-Directed Vaccines against HIV-1.

Autor: Ou L; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Gulla K; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Biju A; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Biner DW; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Bylund T; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Changela A; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Chen SJ; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Zheng CY; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Cibelli N; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Corrigan AR; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Duan H; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Gonelli CA; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Kong WP; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Cheng C; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., O'Dell S; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Sarfo EK; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Shaddeau A; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Wang S; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Vinitsky A; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Yang Y; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Zhang B; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Zhang Y; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Koup RA; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Doria-Rose NA; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Gall JG; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Mascola JR; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA., Kwong PD; Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Vaccines [Vaccines (Basel)] 2022 Nov 12; Vol. 10 (11). Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Nov 12.
DOI: 10.3390/vaccines10111916
Abstrakt: Conjugate-vaccine immunogens require three components: a carrier protein, an antigen, and a crosslinker, capable of coupling antigen to carrier protein, while preserving both T-cell responses from carrier protein and B-cell responses from antigen. We previously showed that the N-terminal eight residues of the HIV-1 fusion peptide (FP8) as an antigen could prime for broad cross-clade neutralizing responses, that recombinant heavy chain of tetanus toxin (rTTHC) as a carrier protein provided optimal responses, and that choice of crosslinker could impact both antigenicity and immunogenicity. Here, we delve more deeply into the impact of varying the linker between FP8 and rTTHC. In specific, we assessed the physical properties, the antigenicity, and the immunogenicity of conjugates for crosslinkers ranging in spacer-arm length from 1.5 to 95.2 Å, with varying hydrophobicity and crosslinking-functional groups. Conjugates coupled with different degrees of multimerization and peptide-to-rTTHC stoichiometry, but all were well recognized by HIV-fusion-peptide-directed antibodies VRC34.01, VRC34.05, PGT151, and ACS202 except for the conjugate with the longest linker (24-PEGylated SMCC; SM(PEG)24), which had lower affinity for ACS202, as did the conjugate with the shortest linker (succinimidyl iodoacetate; SIA), which also had the lowest peptide-to-rTTHC stoichiometry. Murine immunizations testing seven FP8-rTTHC conjugates elicited fusion-peptide-directed antibody responses, with SIA- and SM(PEG)24-linked conjugates eliciting lower responses than the other five conjugates. After boosting with prefusion-closed envelope trimers from strains BG505 clade A and consensus clade C, trimer-directed antibody-binding responses were lower for the SIA-linked conjugate; elicited neutralizing responses were similar, however, though statistically lower for the SM(PEG)24-linked conjugate, when tested against a strain especially sensitive to fusion-peptide-directed responses. Overall, correlation analyses revealed the immunogenicity of FP8-rTTHC conjugates to be negatively impacted by hydrophilicity and extremes of length or low peptide-carrier stoichiometry, but robust to other linker parameters, with several commonly used crosslinkers yielding statistically indistinguishable serological results.
Databáze: MEDLINE