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    Home > Active Ingredient News > Immunology News > Nat Immunol Gaofu team proposes a new strategy for safe and effective Zika vaccine

    Nat Immunol Gaofu team proposes a new strategy for safe and effective Zika vaccine

    • Last Update: 2021-08-08
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Zika virus is a type of mosquito-borne pathogen.
    Infecting pregnant women can cause neonatal microcephaly
    .

    The 2015-16 Zika epidemic became an international public health emergency, and no vaccine has been approved yet
    .

    The antigenicity of Zika virus is close to that of Dengue virus and belongs to a superserum family
    .

    The latest population cohort study found that past Zika virus infection can significantly increase the severity of subsequent dengue virus infections, proving that Zika pre-existing antibodies have a serious antibody dependence enhancement (ADE) risk for dengue virus infection (Science, 369, 1123–1128 (2020))
    .

    The ADE between Zika/Dengue serotypes is a key safety issue that urgently needs to be addressed in vaccine development, especially since the two types of viruses can be transmitted by the same vector (such as Aedes aegypti), and the epidemic areas overlap
    .

    Therefore, an ideal Zika vaccine should have the following three characteristics: 1) prevent mother-to-child transmission of Zika virus; 2) prevent dengue ADE caused by Zika virus infection; 3) prevent dengue ADE caused by Zika virus immunization Leather ADE
    .

    However, the Zika vaccine that has entered the clinical stage globally has not been designed to avoid the potential risk of dengue ADE
    .

    On July 15, 2021, Gao Fu, Dai Lianpan, Yan Jinghua, etc.
    of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a research paper entitled Protective Zika vaccines engineered to eliminate enhancement of dengue infection via immunodominance switch in Nature Immunology, and proposed the elimination of dengue.
    ADE's new strategy for protective Zika vaccines
    .

    The Zika/Dengue virus cross-antibodies that cause the ADE effect mainly target the conserved region of the fusion peptide (FL) of the viral surface structural protein prM and E protein (Science 328, 745–748 (2010))
    .

    It has been reported internationally that by introducing mutations in FL epitopes or constructing E protein dimers to mask FL epitopes, the ADE of Zika vaccine against dengue virus infection can be significantly reduced
    .

    However, in the mouse model, neither of these two vaccine methods can generate sufficient protective immune responses and completely block the vertical transmission of Zika virus from mother to child (Cell 168, 1114–1125 e1110 (2017), Nat.
    Immunol.
    20, 1291–1298 (2019))
    .

    In view of the potential long-term and serious consequences of Zika virus infection on the newborns of pregnant women, Zika vaccines that can induce sterilizing immunity in mothers and infants are particularly important
    .

    The team of Academician Gao Fu has been conducting research on Zika virus since 2016, and resolved the crystal structure of the protective immunogen E protein of Zika virus, and isolated a series of neutralizing/protecting antibodies targeting different domains of the E protein , Resolved the structural basis of representative ADE antibodies targeting FL epitopes (Cell Host Microbe 19, 696–704 (2016); Sci.
    Transl.
    Med.
    8, 369ra179 (2016))
    .

    These preliminary foundations provide important guidance for the rational design of Zika vaccines that eliminate ADE
    .

    In this study, the researchers adopted a reverse vaccinology strategy that uses antibodies to guide vaccine design
    .

    Based on the structural basis of ADE antibody binding to FL (Figure 1), the Zika immunogen E protein was rationally modified to eliminate FL epitopes and maintain the integrity of other neutralizing antibody epitopes
    .

    Since the FL region is highly conserved in the Flavivirus genus, the introduction of mutations in the key amino acids of the FL epitope can easily destroy the E protein structure and greatly reduce the immunogenicity of the vaccine
    .

    Therefore, the researchers replaced the FL of the Zika E protein with the homologous sequence of the arthropod-specific flavivirus in the flavivirus genus by homologous substitution, thereby changing the FL epitope.
    The 3 key amino acids that bind to ADE antibody
    .

    Furthermore, a series of neutralizing protective antibodies and ADE antibodies were used to screen the modified E protein antigen in positive and negative directions to obtain a construction that satisfies both FL epitope elimination and neutralization epitope maintenance
    .

    Two of the designs, MutB and MutC, were prepared into chimpanzee adenovirus vector (AdC7) vaccines for evaluation
    .

    Figure 1.
    The rational design of the ADE antibody based on the structure of the FL epitope-targeted antigen shows that the MutB/C vaccine can produce a clear immune response in a single immunization, which completely protects the mice against the Zika virus challenge, in all cases of viral infection No viral load was detected in the target tissues
    .

    In addition, it was shown that the vaccine completely blocked the mother-to-child transmission of Zika virus in the pregnant mouse infection model, and the viral load was not detectable in the mouse brain and placenta of fetal mice
    .

    The researchers further verified the ADE of MutB/C against dengue virus infection through in vitro and in vivo experiments
    .

    Excitingly, the MutB/C vaccine immune serum completely eliminated the ADE of the four serotypes of dengue virus; the adoptive test of the serum confirmed that the MutB/C vaccine immune serum would not cause the ADE of dengue virus infection, while the wild-type construct (WT) will accelerate the death of animals and worsen the disease
    .

    In order to further explore the immunological basis of the modified vaccine MutB/C to eliminate ADE, the researchers analyzed the characteristics of antigen-specific BCR in the lymph nodes of the immunized mice through the B-cell receptor (BCR) single-cell sequencing method
    .

    The results showed that the humoral immunity stimulated by the wild-type vaccine has obvious immunodominance, and more than 60% of BCR use 3 sets of germline genes
    .

    However, MutB/C breaks the original immune advantage and makes the germline genes used by antigen-specific BCR distributed in a distributed manner (Figure 2)
    .

    The researchers synthesized the representative dominant antibodies in each immune group in the form of antibody IgG
    .

    The study found that the dominant antibodies induced by the wild-type vaccine all target the FL epitope, and have cross-binding and significant ADE for the four serotypes of dengue virus
    .

    The dominant antibodies induced by the MutB/C vaccine hardly bind to dengue viruses of all serotypes, and there is no ADE
    .

    Interestingly, by comparing the existing reports of flavivirus FL epitope murine monoclonal antibodies from different sources, it is found that these antibodies all use almost the same germline genes as the antibodies elicited by the wild-type vaccine reported in this article
    .

    This suggests that ADE antibodies to FL epitopes of flaviviruses may share a few similar germline genes
    .

    Figure 2.
    The MutB/C vaccine converted the immunodominance occupied by the ADE antibody.
    Researchers finally analyzed the molecular basis of one of the antigen-modified E protein MutC binding neutralizing antibodies, and found that MutC can still maintain the E protein through the new force Dimer structure, which is very important for activating effective neutralizing antibodies
    .

    In addition, the modified FL amino acids produce steric hindrance and charge repulsion to ADE antibodies, thus revealing the structural basis for MutC not to induce the production of ADE antibodies
    .

    The study successfully applied structural guidance antigen design to solve the problem of Zika vaccine ADE, and provided a beautiful solution to the long-standing problems in the development of Zika vaccine
    .

    The rational design of a new Zika vaccine that eliminates ADE has taken a big step towards the development of a safe and effective Zika vaccine, and will guide the future clinical use of Zika vaccine
    .

    Academician Gao Fu, researcher Dai Lianpan, and researcher Yan Jinghua of the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences are the co-corresponding authors of the paper
    .

    Researcher Dai Lianpan, Dr.
    Xu Kun from Hainan Medical University, and Li Jinhe, a doctoral student at the Beijing Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, are the first authors of the paper
    .

    Professor Xia Ganfeng of Hainan Medical College and others gave important help
    .

    Original link: https://doi.
    org/10.
    1038/s41590-021-00966-6 Platemaker: Notes for reprinting on the 11th [Non-original article] The copyright of this article belongs to the author of the article.
    Personal forwarding and sharing are welcome.
    Reprinting without permission is prohibited.
    The author has all legal rights, and offenders must be investigated
    .

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