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Cai X, Zheng W, Pan S, Zhang S, Xie Y, Guo H, Wang G, Li Z, Luo M. A virus-like particle of the hepatitis B virus preS antigen elicits robust neutralizing antibodies and T cell responses in mice. Antiviral Res 2017; 149:48-57. [PMID: 29129705 DOI: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2017.11.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2017] [Revised: 09/21/2017] [Accepted: 11/07/2017] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Abstract
The preS antigen of hepatitis B virus (HBV) corresponds to the N-terminal polypeptide in the large (L) antigen in addition to the small (S) antigen. The virus-like particle (VLP) of the S antigen is widely used as a vaccine to protect the population from HBV infection. The presence of the S antigen and its antibodies in patient blood has been used as markers to monitor hepatitis B. However, there is very limited knowledge about the preS antigen. We generated a preS VLP that is formed by a chimeric protein between preS and hemagglutinin (HA), and the matrix protein M1 of influenza virus. The HBV preS antigen is displayed on the surface of preS VLP. Asn112 and Ser98 of preS in VLP were found to be glycosylated and O-glycosylation of Ser98 has not been reported previously. The preS VLP shows a significantly higher immunogenicity than recombinant preS, eliciting robust anti-preS neutralizing antibodies. In addition, preS VLP is also capable of stimulating preS-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses in Balb/c mice and HBV transgenic mice. Furthermore, preS VLP immunization provided protection against hydrodynamic transfection of HBV DNA in mice. The data clearly suggest that this novel preS VLP could elicit robust immune responses to the HBV antigen, and can be potentially developed into prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaodan Cai
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, PR China
| | - Weihao Zheng
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, PR China
| | - Shaokun Pan
- Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology (MOE & MOH), Institute of Biomedical Sciences, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China
| | - Shengyuan Zhang
- Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory of Infection and Immunity, Institute of Biophysics, 15 Da Tun Road, Beijing 100101, PR China
| | - Youhua Xie
- Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology (MOE & MOH), Institute of Biomedical Sciences, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China
| | - Haitao Guo
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Guoxin Wang
- Research Center of Plasmonic and Near-Infrared Science, Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, South Area of Hi-Tech Park, Nanshan, Shenzhen 518057, PR China.
| | - Zigang Li
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, PR China.
| | - Ming Luo
- Department of Chemistry, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA; Center for Diagnostics and Therapeutics, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA.
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Specificities of human CD4+ T cell responses to an inactivated flavivirus vaccine and infection: correlation with structure and epitope prediction. J Virol 2014; 88:7828-42. [PMID: 24789782 DOI: 10.1128/jvi.00196-14] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus is endemic in large parts of Europe and Central and Eastern Asia and causes more than 10,000 annual cases of neurological disease in humans. It is closely related to the mosquito-borne yellow fever, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile viruses, and vaccination with an inactivated whole-virus vaccine can effectively prevent clinical disease. Neutralizing antibodies are directed to the viral envelope protein (E) and an accepted correlate of immunity. However, data on the specificities of CD4(+) T cells that recognize epitopes in the viral structural proteins and thus can provide direct help to the B cells producing E-specific antibodies are lacking. We therefore conducted a study on the CD4(+) T cell response against the virion proteins in vaccinated people in comparison to TBE patients. The data obtained with overlapping peptides in interleukin-2 (IL-2) enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISpot) assays were analyzed in relation to the three-dimensional structures of the capsid (C) and E proteins as well as to epitope predictions based on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II peptide affinities. In the C protein, peptides corresponding to two out of four alpha helices dominated the response in both vaccinees and patients, whereas in the E protein concordance of immunodominance was restricted to peptides of a single domain (domain III). Epitope predictions were much better for C than for E and were especially erroneous for the transmembrane regions. Our data provide evidence for a strong impact of protein structural features that influence peptide processing, contributing to the discrepancies observed between experimentally determined and computer-predicted CD4(+) T cell epitopes. Importance: Tick-borne encephalitis virus is endemic in large parts of Europe and Asia and causes more than 10,000 annual cases of neurological disease in humans. It is closely related to yellow fever, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile viruses, and vaccination with an inactivated vaccine can effectively prevent disease. Both vaccination and natural infection induce the formation of antibodies to a viral surface protein that neutralize the infectivity of the virus and mediate protection. B lymphocytes synthesizing these antibodies require help from other lymphocytes (helper T cells) which recognize small peptides derived from proteins contained in the viral particle. Which of these peptides dominate immune responses to vaccination and infection, however, was unknown. In our study we demonstrate which parts of the proteins contribute most strongly to the helper T cell response, highlight specific weaknesses of currently available approaches for their prediction, and demonstrate similarities and differences between vaccination and infection.
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Jin G, Fu C, Zhao H, Cui K, Chang J, Wong ST. A novel method of transcriptional response analysis to facilitate drug repositioning for cancer therapy. Cancer Res 2012; 72:33-44. [PMID: 22108825 PMCID: PMC3251651 DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-11-2333] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Little research has been done to address the huge opportunities that may exist to reposition existing approved or generic drugs for alternate uses in cancer therapy. In addition, there has been little work on strategies to reposition experimental cancer agents for testing in alternate settings that could shorten their clinical development time. Progress in each area has lagged, in part, because of the lack of systematic methods to define drug off-target effects (OTE) that might affect important cancer cell signaling pathways. In this study, we addressed this critical gap by developing an OTE-based method to repurpose drugs for cancer therapeutics, based on transcriptional responses made in cells before and after drug treatment. Specifically, we defined a new network component called cancer-signaling bridges (CSB) and integrated it with a Bayesian factor regression model (BFRM) to form a new hybrid method termed CSB-BFRM. Proof-of-concept studies were conducted in breast and prostate cancer cells and in promyelocytic leukemia cells. In each system, CSB-BFRM analysis could accurately predict clinical responses to more than 90% of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and more than 75% of experimental clinical drugs that were tested. Mechanistic investigation of OTEs for several high-ranking drug-dose pairs suggested repositioning opportunities for cancer therapy, based on the ability to enforce retinoblastoma-dependent repression of important E2F-dependent cell-cycle genes. Together, our findings establish new methods to identify opportunities for drug repositioning or to elucidate the mechanisms of action of repositioned drugs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guangxu Jin
- Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston
- NCI Center for Modeling Cancer Development, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, Houston
| | - Changhe Fu
- Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston
| | - Hong Zhao
- Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston
- NCI Center for Modeling Cancer Development, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, Houston
| | - Kemi Cui
- Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston
- NCI Center for Modeling Cancer Development, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, Houston
| | - Jenny Chang
- Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston
- NCI Center for Modeling Cancer Development, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, Houston
- Methodist Cancer Center, The Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Stephen T.C. Wong
- Department of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston
- NCI Center for Modeling Cancer Development, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, Houston
- Methodist Cancer Center, The Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
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Desmond CP, Bartholomeusz A, Gaudieri S, Revill PA, Lewin SR. A Systematic Review of T-cell Epitopes in Hepatitis B Virus: Identification, Genotypic Variation and Relevance to Antiviral Therapeutics. Antivir Ther 2008. [DOI: 10.1177/135965350801300218] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Background The immune response to hepatitis B virus (HBV) is important for both viral control and disease pathogenesis. A detailed understanding of the HBV-specific T-cell responses may potentially lead to novel therapeutic strategies for HBV. Methods All English language journal articles (including articles in press) up to October 2007 were retrieved using searches of MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Controlled Trial Registry. An extensive database of HBV sequences (SeqHepB) and GenBank were used to assess the degree of sequence variation in each epitope. The new standardized nomenclature for HBV amino acid position number was applied to all previously defined epitopes. Results Forty-four HBV-specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I restricted and 32 HBV-specific HLA class II restricted epitopes have been defined and have been identified in all HBV genes. The majority of HLA class I restricted epitopes have been defined in HLA-A2-positive individuals in the setting of acute HBV infection. There is significant sequence variation of these epitopes within and between HBV genotypes. Newer HBV immunotherapeutics appear promising but are still in early phases of development. Conclusions Identification of HBV-specific epitopes in non-HLA-A2-positive individuals and recognition of genotypic variation across epitopes are important for the future development of novel immunotherapeutic strategies for the management of chronic HBV infection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher P Desmond
- Department of Gastroenterology, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
- Department of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | | | - Silvana Gaudieri
- Centre for Clinical Immunology and Biomedical Statistics, Royal Perth Hospital and Murdoch University, Perth, Australia
- Centre of Forensic Science and School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, Australia
| | - Peter A Revill
- Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Sharon R Lewin
- Department of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
- Infectious Diseases Unit, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
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