Vaccine development is a crucial challenge in modern medicine, where the primary goal is to stimulate blood cells to produce antibodies against specific viral proteins. According to a recent study published in Biology Methods & ProtocolsGerman researchers have advanced this area by developing a novel system for displaying epitopes in mammalian cells, focused on immunization studies.
This method could significantly improve immunization efforts, since the effectiveness of vaccines depends largely on the design and delivery of antigens, which are fragments of the virus used to test the effectiveness of the vaccine. An essential part of virus research is the expression and purification of the antigen for vaccination.
Animals immunized with prepared antigens produce specific antibodies against them. However, scientists must isolate the antigen to ensure that they develop a vaccine that targets the specific disease they want to combat. This isolation process is particularly extensive when trying to develop laboratory-produced antigens, as viruses tend to mutate quickly.
Proteins are everything
The research team developed an innovative method to induce target-specific immune responses. By fusing antigenic proteins to a membrane-bound, tetraspanin-derived anchor protein, the researchers created fusion proteins that are predominantly displayed on the surface of human cells.
This exposure of proteins on the surface by a carrier protein induces the production of antibodies directed against the relevant antigens, that is, the indicated ones. Furthermore, these antigens maintain the same conformation and modifications as the corresponding proteins in the virus, since they are produced by cells similar to those that the virus naturally infects in the human body.
Future applications
This new display technology could be a much more reliable and efficient immunization technique. In the study, researchers were able to induce antibodies against different proteins, with a focus on the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The anchor protein developed allows scientists to target a specific disease for immunization purposes without the need to purify the antigen. Daniel Ivanusic, one of the authors of the study, highlighted that this work represents only the beginning of a very interesting immunization technique, with significant applications, especially in the induction of neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1.
2023-12-14 13:47:08
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