1. Toxoplasma gondii-Derived Synthetic Peptides Containing B- and T-Cell Epitopes from GRA2 Protein Are Able to Enhance Mice Survival in a Model of Experimental Toxoplasmosis
- Author
-
Tiago Wp Mineo, Carlos Priminho Pirovani, Murilo Veira Silva, Fabiana de Almeida Araújo Santos, Fernanda Maria Santiago, Arlindo Gomes de Macêdo, Luciana Machado Bastos, Eliézer Lucas Pires Ramos, Luiz Ricardo Goulart, and José Roberto Mineo
- Subjects
Protozoan Vaccines ,0301 basic medicine ,Phage display ,Protein Conformation ,Protozoan Proteins ,lcsh:QR1-502 ,Antibodies, Protozoan ,Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte ,lcsh:Microbiology ,Epitope ,Mice ,Fluorescent Antibody Technique, Indirect ,Original Research ,biology ,Antibodies, Monoclonal ,B- and T-cell epitopes ,Isotype ,Survival Rate ,Treatment Outcome ,T-cell epitope ,Infectious Diseases ,GRA2 ,Cytokines ,Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte ,synthetic peptides ,Female ,Toxoplasma ,Toxoplasmosis ,Microbiology (medical) ,medicine.drug_class ,030106 microbiology ,Immunology ,Toxoplasma gondii ,Antigens, Protozoan ,Monoclonal antibody ,Microbiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Adjuvants, Immunologic ,medicine ,Animals ,Amino Acid Sequence ,Rhoptry ,Interleukins ,B-cell epitope ,biology.organism_classification ,medicine.disease ,Virology ,Immunity, Humoral ,Mice, Inbred C57BL ,Models, Structural ,Disease Models, Animal ,030104 developmental biology ,monoclonal antibody ,Dense granule ,Peptides - Abstract
Toxoplasmosis is a zoonosis distributed all over the world, which the etiologic agent is an intracellular protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. This disease may cause abortions and severe diseases in many warm-blood hosts, including humans, particularly the immunocompromised patients. The parasite specialized secretory organelles, as micronemes, rhoptries and dense granules, are critical for the successful parasitism. The dense granule protein 2 (GRA2) is a parasite immunogenic protein secreted during infections and previous studies have been shown that this parasite component is crucial for the formation of intravacuolar membranous nanotubular network (MNN), as well as for secretion into the vacuole and spatial organization of the parasites within the vacuole. In the present study, we produced a monoclonal antibody to GRA2 (C3C5 mAb, isotype IgG2b), mapped the immunodominant epitope of the protein by phage display and built GRA2 synthetic epitopes to evaluate their ability to protect mice in a model of experimental infection. Our results showed that synthetic peptides for B- and T-cell epitopes are able to improve survival of immunized animals. In contrast with non-immunized animals, the immunized mice with both B- and T-cell epitopes had a better balance of cytokines and demonstrated higher levels of IL-10, IL-4 and IL-17 production, though similar levels of TNF-alpha and IL-6 were observed. The immunization with both B- and T-cell epitopes resulted in survival rate higher than 85% of the challenged mice. Overall, these results demonstrate that immunization with synthetic epitopes for both B- and T-cells from GRA2 protein can be more effective to protect against infection by T. gondii.
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF