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Ali A, Ganguillet S, Turgay Y, Keys TG, Causa E, Fradique R, Lutz-Bueno V, Chesnov S, Tan-Lin CW, Lentsch V, Kotar J, Cicuta P, Mezzenga R, Slack E, Radiom M. Surface Cross-Linking by Macromolecular Tethers Enhances Virus-like Particles' Resilience to Mucosal Stress Factors. ACS Nano 2024; 18:3382-3396. [PMID: 38237058 PMCID: PMC10832050 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.3c10339] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2023] [Revised: 01/09/2024] [Accepted: 01/10/2024] [Indexed: 01/31/2024]
Abstract
Virus-like particles (VLPs) are emerging as nanoscaffolds in a variety of biomedical applications including delivery of vaccine antigens and cargo such as mRNA to mucosal surfaces. These soft, colloidal, and proteinaceous structures (capsids) are nevertheless susceptible to mucosal environmental stress factors. We cross-linked multiple capsid surface amino acid residues using homobifunctional polyethylene glycol tethers to improve the persistence and survival of the capsid to model mucosal stressors. Surface cross-linking enhanced the stability of VLPs assembled from Acinetobacter phage AP205 coat proteins in low pH (down to pH 4.0) and high protease concentration conditions (namely, in pig and mouse gastric fluids). Additionally, it increased the stiffness of VLPs under local mechanical indentation applied using an atomic force microscopy cantilever tip. Small angle X-ray scattering revealed an increase in capsid diameter after cross-linking and an increase in capsid shell thickness with the length of the PEG cross-linkers. Moreover, surface cross-linking had no effect on the VLPs' mucus translocation and accumulation on the epithelium of in vitro 3D human nasal epithelial tissues with mucociliary clearance. Finally, it did not compromise VLPs' function as vaccines in mouse subcutaneous vaccination models. Compared to PEGylation without cross-linking, the stiffness of surface cross-linked VLPs were higher for the same length of the PEG molecule, and also the lifetimes of surface cross-linked VLPs were longer in the gastric fluids. Surface cross-linking using macromolecular tethers, but not simple conjugation of these molecules, thus offers a viable means to enhance the resilience and survival of VLPs for mucosal applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ahmed Ali
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Suwannee Ganguillet
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Yagmur Turgay
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Timothy G. Keys
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Erika Causa
- Biological
and Soft Systems, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
| | - Ricardo Fradique
- Biological
and Soft Systems, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
| | - Viviane Lutz-Bueno
- Paul
Scherrer Institute (PSI), Villigen 5232, Switzerland
- Laboratoire
Léon Brillouin, CEA-CNRS (UMR-12), CEA Saclay, Université
Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex 91191, France
| | - Serge Chesnov
- Functional
Genomics Centre Zürich (FGCZ), University of Zürich/ETH
Zürich, Zürich 8057, Switzerland
| | - Chia-Wei Tan-Lin
- Functional
Genomics Centre Zürich (FGCZ), University of Zürich/ETH
Zürich, Zürich 8057, Switzerland
| | - Verena Lentsch
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Jurij Kotar
- Biological
and Soft Systems, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
| | - Pietro Cicuta
- Biological
and Soft Systems, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
| | - Raffaele Mezzenga
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Emma Slack
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
| | - Milad Radiom
- Department
of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland
- Biological
and Soft Systems, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
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Cuénod A, Agnetti J, Seth-Smith HMB, Roloff T, Wälchli D, Shcherbakov D, Akbergenov R, Tschudin-Sutter S, Bassetti S, Siegemund M, Nickel CH, Moran-Gilad J, Keys TG, Pflüger V, Thomson NR, Egli A. Bacterial genome-wide association study substantiates papGII of Escherichia coli as a major risk factor for urosepsis. Genome Med 2023; 15:89. [PMID: 37904175 PMCID: PMC10614358 DOI: 10.1186/s13073-023-01243-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/01/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide, often caused by uropathogenic Escherichia coli. Multiple bacterial virulence factors or patient characteristics have been linked separately to progressive, more invasive infections. In this study, we aim to identify pathogen- and patient-specific factors that drive the progression to urosepsis by jointly analysing bacterial and host characteristics. METHODS We analysed 1076 E. coli strains isolated from 825 clinical cases with UTI and/or bacteraemia by whole-genome sequencing (Illumina). Sequence types (STs) were determined via srst2 and capsule loci via fastKaptive. We compared the isolates from urine and blood to confirm clonality. Furthermore, we performed a bacterial genome-wide association study (bGWAS) (pyseer) using bacteraemia as the primary clinical outcome. Clinical data were collected by an electronic patient chart review. We concurrently analysed the association of the most significant bGWAS hit and important patient characteristics with the clinical endpoint bacteraemia using a generalised linear model (GLM). Finally, we designed qPCR primers and probes to detect papGII-positive E. coli strains and prospectively screened E. coli from urine samples (n = 1657) at two healthcare centres. RESULTS Our patient cohort had a median age of 75.3 years (range: 18.00-103.1) and was predominantly female (574/825, 69.6%). The bacterial phylogroups B2 (60.6%; 500/825) and D (16.6%; 137/825), which are associated with extraintestinal infections, represent the majority of the strains in our collection, many of which encode a polysaccharide capsule (63.4%; 525/825). The most frequently observed STs were ST131 (12.7%; 105/825), ST69 (11.0%; 91/825), and ST73 (10.2%; 84/825). Of interest, in 12.3% (13/106) of cases, the E. coli pairs in urine and blood were only distantly related. In line with previous bGWAS studies, we identified the gene papGII (p-value < 0.001), which encodes the adhesin subunit of the E. coli P-pilus, to be associated with 'bacteraemia' in our bGWAS. In our GLM, correcting for patient characteristics, papGII remained highly significant (odds ratio = 5.27, 95% confidence interval = [3.48, 7.97], p-value < 0.001). An independent cohort of cases which we screened for papGII-carrying E. coli at two healthcare centres further confirmed the increased relative frequency of papGII-positive strains causing invasive infection, compared to papGII-negative strains (p-value = 0.033, chi-squared test). CONCLUSIONS This study builds on previous work linking papGII with invasive infection by showing that it is a major risk factor for progression from UTI to bacteraemia that has diagnostic potential.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aline Cuénod
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK.
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
| | - Jessica Agnetti
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Helena M B Seth-Smith
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Tim Roloff
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Denise Wälchli
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Dimitri Shcherbakov
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Rashid Akbergenov
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Sarah Tschudin-Sutter
- Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Department of Clinical Research, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Stefano Bassetti
- Division of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Martin Siegemund
- Department of Clinical Research, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Intensive Care Unit, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Christian H Nickel
- Emergency Department, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Jacob Moran-Gilad
- Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er Sheva, Israel
| | - Timothy G Keys
- Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Nicholas R Thomson
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK
- Department of Pathogen Molecular Biology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Adrian Egli
- Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
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Keys TG, Wetter M, Hang I, Rutschmann C, Russo S, Mally M, Steffen M, Zuppiger M, Müller F, Schneider J, Faridmoayer A, Lin CW, Aebi M. A biosynthetic route for polysialylating proteins in Escherichia coli. Metab Eng 2017; 44:293-301. [PMID: 29101090 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymben.2017.10.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2017] [Revised: 09/12/2017] [Accepted: 10/27/2017] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Polysialic acid (polySia) is a posttranslational modification found on only a handful of proteins in the central nervous and immune systems. The addition of polySia to therapeutic proteins improves pharmacokinetics and reduces immunogenicity. To date, polysialylation of therapeutic proteins has only been achieved in vitro by chemical or chemoenzymatic strategies. In this work, we develop a biosynthetic pathway for site-specific polysialylation of recombinant proteins in the cytoplasm of Escherichia coli. The pathway takes advantage of a bacterial cytoplasmic polypeptide-glycosyltransferase to establish a site-specific primer on the target protein. The glucose primer is extended by glycosyltransferases derived from lipooligosaccharide, lipopolysaccharide and capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis from different bacterial species to synthesize long chain polySia. We demonstrate the new biosynthetic route by modifying green fluorescent proteins and a therapeutic DARPin (designed ankyrin repeat protein).
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Affiliation(s)
- Timothy G Keys
- Institute of Microbiology, Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Ivan Hang
- Institute of Microbiology, Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Chia-Wei Lin
- Institute of Microbiology, Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Markus Aebi
- Institute of Microbiology, Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland.
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Ehrit J, Keys TG, Sutherland M, Wolf S, Meier C, Falconer RA, Gerardy-Schahn R. Exploring and Exploiting Acceptor Preferences of the Human Polysialyltransferases as a Basis for an Inhibitor Screen. Chembiochem 2017; 18:1332-1337. [PMID: 28472541 DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201700157] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2017] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
α2,8-Linked polysialic acid (polySia) is an oncofoetal antigen with high abundance during embryonic development. It reappears in malignant tumours of neuroendocrine origin. Two polysialyltransferases (polySTs) ST8SiaII and IV are responsible for polySia biosynthesis. During development, both enzymes are essential to control polySia expression. However, in tumours ST8SiaII is the prevalent enzyme. Consequently, ST8SiaII is an attractive target for novel cancer therapeutics. A major challenge is the high structural and functional conservation of ST8SiaII and -IV. An assay system that enables differential testing of ST8SiaII and -IV would be of high value to search for specific inhibitors. Here we exploited the different modes of acceptor recognition and elongation for this purpose. With DMB-DP3 and DMB-DP12 (fluorescently labelled sialic acid oligomers with a degree of polymerisation of 3 and 12, respectively) we identified stark differences between the two enzymes. The new acceptors enabled the simple comparative testing of the polyST initial transfer rate for a series of CMP-activated and N-substituted sialic acid derivatives. Of these derivatives, the non-transferable CMP-Neu5Cyclo was found to be a new, competitive ST8SiaII inhibitor.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jörg Ehrit
- Institute of Clinical Biochemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany
| | - Timothy G Keys
- Institute of Clinical Biochemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany
| | - Mark Sutherland
- Institute of Cancer Therapeutics, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 1DP, UK
| | - Saskia Wolf
- Department of Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, University Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 6, 20146, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Chris Meier
- Department of Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, University Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 6, 20146, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Robert A Falconer
- Institute of Cancer Therapeutics, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 1DP, UK
| | - Rita Gerardy-Schahn
- Institute of Clinical Biochemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany
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Romanow A, Keys TG, Stummeyer K, Freiberger F, Henrissat B, Gerardy-Schahn R. Dissection of hexosyl- and sialyltransferase domains in the bifunctional capsule polymerases from Neisseria meningitidis W and Y defines a new sialyltransferase family. J Biol Chem 2014; 289:33945-57. [PMID: 25342753 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.m114.597773] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Crucial virulence determinants of disease causing Neisseria meningitidis species are their extracellular polysaccharide capsules. In the serogroups W and Y, these are heteropolymers of the repeating units (→6)-α-d-Gal-(1→4)-α-Neu5Ac-(2→)n in NmW and (→6)-α-d-Glc-(1→4)-α-Neu5Ac-(2→)n in NmY. The capsule polymerases, SiaDW and SiaDY, which synthesize these highly unusual polymers, are composed of two predicted GT-B fold domains separated by a large stretch of amino acids (aa 399-762). We recently showed that residues critical to the hexosyl- and sialyltransferase activity are found in the predicted N-terminal (aa 1-398) and C-terminal (aa 763-1037) GT-B fold domains, respectively. Here we use a mutational approach and synthetic fluorescent substrates to define the boundaries of the hexosyl- and sialyltransferase domains. Our results reveal that the active sialyltransferase domain extends well beyond the predicted C-terminal GT-B domain and defines a new glycosyltransferase family, GT97, in CAZy (Carbohydrate-Active enZYmes Database).
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Affiliation(s)
- Angela Romanow
- From the Institute of Cellular Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany
| | - Timothy G Keys
- From the Institute of Cellular Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany
| | - Katharina Stummeyer
- From the Institute of Cellular Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany
| | - Friedrich Freiberger
- From the Institute of Cellular Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany
| | - Bernard Henrissat
- UMR 7257, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France, and the Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
| | - Rita Gerardy-Schahn
- From the Institute of Cellular Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Strasse 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany,
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Keys TG, Berger M, Gerardy-Schahn R. A high-throughput screen for polysialyltransferase activity. Anal Biochem 2012; 427:60-8. [PMID: 22579847 DOI: 10.1016/j.ab.2012.04.033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2012] [Revised: 04/27/2012] [Accepted: 04/30/2012] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Polysialic acid is common to humans and a few bacterial pathogens and it holds great potential for the development of new therapeutic reagents. Currently, the bacterial polysialyltransferases (polySTs) are the only source of polysialic acid for research and biotechnological purposes either directly, by enzymatic polysialylation of therapeutic proteins, or indirectly, by harvest of polysialic acid from bacterial fermentation. Further engineering and optimization of these enzymes is hindered by the lack of high-throughput screening methodologies for polysialyltransferase activity. Here we report the development of an efficient in vivo activity screen for bacterial polySTs. The screen exploits complementation of a dormant capsule export complex in the expression strain, Escherichia coli BL21-Gold(DE3). This strain was metabolically engineered to synthesize CMP-Neu5Ac, the donor sugar for the polysialylation reaction. Using the new strain, a colony blotting procedure that enables the routine testing of more than 10(4) polyST genes was developed. To test the usefulness of the methodology, we screened a library of N-terminally truncated polySTs derived from the Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B (NmB)-polyST. We identified truncations that remove a putative membrane interaction domain, resulting in soluble and active enzymes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timothy G Keys
- Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Cellular Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Hannover 30625, Germany
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Poulsen SA, Davis RA, Keys TG. Screening a natural product-based combinatorial library using FTICR mass spectrometry. Bioorg Med Chem 2006; 14:510-5. [PMID: 16198579 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmc.2005.08.030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2005] [Revised: 08/15/2005] [Accepted: 08/16/2005] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
This manuscript reports the use of Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry to screen a combinatorially generated natural product-based library for binding affinity to bovine carbonic anhydrase II (bCAII). The fungal natural product 3-chloro-4-hydroxyphenylacetamide was the library template, with 11 secondary amide analogues of this template constituting the combinatorial library. 2-(3-Chloro-4-hydroxyphenyl)-N-(4-sulfamoylphenethyl)acetamide (compound 11) of this library was identified as a tight binding inhibitor of bCAII, by detection of a noncovalent complex corresponding to [bCAII+11] in the mass spectrum. A competitive bCAII enzyme binding assay validated the mass spectrometry screening result. The equilibrium dissociation constant (K(i)) for 11 was measured as 77.4 nM. Preliminary structure-activity investigations of the bioactive natural product analogue are also reported.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sally-Ann Poulsen
- Chemical Biology Group, Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane 4111, Australia.
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