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Sood S, Matar MM, Kim J, Kinsella M, Rayavara K, Signer O, Henderson J, Rogers J, Chawla B, Narvaez B, Van Ry A, Kar S, Arnold A, Rice JS, Smith AM, Su D, Sparks J, Le Goff C, Boyer JD, Anwer K. Strong immunogenicity & protection in mice with PlaCCine: A COVID-19 DNA vaccine formulated with a functional polymer. Vaccine 2024; 42:1300-1310. [PMID: 38302336 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.01.065] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/20/2024] [Indexed: 02/03/2024]
Abstract
DNA- based vaccines have demonstrated the potential as a safe and effective modality. PlaCCine, a DNA-based vaccine approach described subsequently relies on a synthetic DNA delivery system and is independent of virus or device. The synthetic functionalized polymer combined with DNA demonstrated stability over 12 months at 4C and for one month at 25C. Transfection efficiency compared to naked DNA increased by 5-15-fold in murine skeletal muscle. Studies of DNA vaccines expressing spike proteins from variants D614G (pVAC15), Delta (pVAC16), or a D614G + Delta combination (pVAC17) were conducted. Mice immunized intramuscular injection (IM) with pVAC15, pVAC16 or pVAC17 formulated with functionalized polymer and adjuvant resulted in induction of spike-specific humoral and cellular responses. Antibody responses were observed after one immunization. And endpoint IgG titers increased to greater than 1x 105 two weeks after the second injection. Neutralizing antibodies as determined by a pseudovirus competition assay were observed following vaccination with pVAC15, pVAC16 or pVAC17. Spike specific T cell immune responses were also observed following vaccination and flow cytometry analysis demonstrated the cellular immune responses included both CD4 and CD8 spike specific T cells. The immune responses in vaccinated mice were maintained for up to 14 months after vaccination. In an immunization and challenge study of K18 hACE2 transgenic mice pVAC15, pVAC16 and pVAC17 induced immune responses lead to decreased lung viral loads by greater than 90 % along with improved clinical score. These findings suggest that PlaCCine DNA vaccines are effective and stable and further development against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants is warranted.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Jessica Kim
- Imunon Inc., Lawrenceville, NJ, United States
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Daishui Su
- Imunon Inc., Lawrenceville, NJ, United States
| | - Jeff Sparks
- Imunon Inc., Lawrenceville, NJ, United States
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Richel E, Wagner JT, Klessing S, Di Vincenzo R, Temchura V, Überla K. Antigen-dependent modulation of immune responses to antigen-Fc fusion proteins by Fc-effector functions. Front Immunol 2023; 14:1275193. [PMID: 37868961 PMCID: PMC10585040 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1275193] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2023] [Accepted: 09/19/2023] [Indexed: 10/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Fc-fusion proteins have been successfully developed for therapeutic purposes, but are also a promising platform for the fast generation and purification of immunogens capable of inducing strong humoral immune responses in preclinical immunization studies. As the Fc-portion of immunoglobulins fused to an antigen confers functional properties of the parental antibody, such as dimerization, binding to Fc-receptors and complement activation, several studies reported that Fc-fusion proteins elicit stronger antigen-specific antibody responses than the unfused antigen. However, dimerization or half-life extension of an antigen have also been described to enhance immunogenicity. Methods To explore the role of Fc-effector functions for the immunogenicity of fusions proteins of viral glycoproteins and Fc fragments, the HIV-1 gp120 and the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 were fused to the wild type muIgG2a Fc fragment or mutants with impaired (LALA-PG) or improved (GASDIE) Fc-effector functions. Results Immunization of BALB/c mice with DNA vaccines encoding gp120 - Fc LALA-PG induced significantly higher antigen-specific antibody responses than gp120 - Fc WT and GASDIE. In contrast, immunization with DNA vaccines encoding the RBD fused to the same Fc mutants, resulted in comparable anti-RBD antibody levels and similar neutralization activity against several SARS-CoV-2 variants. Conclusion Depending on the antigen, Fc-effector functions either do not modulate or suppress the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines encoding Fc-antigen fusion proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elie Richel
- Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology, University Hospital Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | | | | | | | | | - Klaus Überla
- Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology, University Hospital Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
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