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Gulla K, Cibelli N, Cooper JW, Fuller HC, Schneiderman Z, Witter S, Zhang Y, Changela A, Geng H, Hatcher C, Narpala S, Tsybovsky Y, Zhang B, Vrc Production Program, McDermott AB, Kwong PD, Gowetski DB. A non-affinity purification process for GMP production of prefusion-closed HIV-1 envelope trimers from clades A and C for clinical evaluation. Vaccine 2021; 39:3379-3387. [PMID: 34020817 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.04.063] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2020] [Revised: 04/14/2021] [Accepted: 04/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Metastable glycosylated immunogens present challenges for GMP manufacturing. The HIV-1 envelope (Env) glycoprotein trimer is covered by N-linked glycan comprising half its mass and requires both trimer assembly and subunit cleavage to fold into a prefusion-closed conformation. This conformation, the vaccine-desired antigenic state, is both metastable to structural rearrangement and labile to subunit dissociation. Prior reported GMP manufacturing for a soluble trimer stabilized in a near-native state by disulfide (SOS) and Ile-to-Pro (IP) mutations has employed affinity methods based on antibody 2G12, which recognizes only ~30% of circulating HIV strains. Here, we develop a scalable manufacturing process based on commercially available, non-affinity resins, and we apply the process to current GMP (cGMP) production of trimers from clades A and C, which have been found to boost cross-clade neutralizing responses in vaccine-test species. The clade A trimer, which we named "BG505 DS-SOSIP.664", contained an engineered disulfide (201C-433C; DS) within gp120, which further stabilized this trimer in a prefusion-closed conformation resistant to CD4-induced triggering. BG505 DS-SOSIP.664 was expressed in a CHO-DG44 stable cell line and purified with initial and final tangential flow filtration steps, three commercially available resin-based chromatography steps, and two orthogonal viral clearance steps. The non-affinity purification enabled efficient scale-up, with a 250 L-scale cGMP run yielding 9.6 g of purified BG505 DS-SOSIP.664. Antigenic analysis indicated retention of a prefusion-closed conformation, including recognition by apex-directed and fusion peptide-directed antibodies. The developed manufacturing process was suitable for 50 L-scale production of a second prefusion-stabilized Env trimer vaccine candidate, ConC-FP8v2 RnS-3mut-2G-SOSIP.664, yielding 7.8 g of this consensus clade C trimer. The successful process development and purification scale-up of HIV-1 Env trimers from different clades by using commercially available materials provide experimental demonstration for cGMP manufacturing of trimeric HIV-Env vaccine immunogens, in an antigenically desired conformation, without the use of costly affinity resins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Krishana Gulla
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Nicole Cibelli
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Jonathan W Cooper
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Haley C Fuller
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Zachary Schneiderman
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Sara Witter
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Yaqiu Zhang
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Anita Changela
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Hui Geng
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Christian Hatcher
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Sandeep Narpala
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Yaroslav Tsybovsky
- Electron Microscopy Laboratory, Cancer Research Technology Program, Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD 21702, USA
| | - Baoshan Zhang
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Vrc Production Program
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Adrian B McDermott
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Peter D Kwong
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
| | - Daniel B Gowetski
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
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