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Mayaro virus (MAYV), which causes mayaro fever, is endemic to limited regions of South America that may expand due to the possible involvement of Aedes spp. mosquitoes in its transmission. Its effective control will require the accurate identification of infected individuals, which has been restricted to nucleic acid-based tests due to similarities with other emerging members of the Alphavirus genus of the Togaviridae family; both in structure and clinical symptoms. Serological tests have a more significant potential to expand testing at a reasonable cost, and their performance primarily reflects that of the antigen utilized to capture pathogen-specific antibodies. Here, we describe the assembly of a synthetic gene encoding multiple copies of antigenic determinants mapped from the nsP1, nsP2, E1, and E2 proteins of MAYV that readily expressed as a stable chimeric protein in bacteria. Its serological performance as the target in ELISAs revealed a high accuracy for detecting anti-MAYV IgM antibodies. No cross-reactivity was observed with serum from seropositive individuals for dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, Zika, and other infectious diseases as well as healthy individuals. Our data suggest that this bioengineered antigen could be used to develop high-performance serological tests for MAYV infections., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

CTLA4-Ig is an Fc fusion protein containing the extracellular domain of CTLA-4, a receptor known to deliver a negative signal to T cells. CTLA4-Ig modulates T cell costimulatory signals by blocking the CD80 and CD86 ligands from binding to CD28, which delivers a positive T cell costimulatory signal. To engineer CTLA4-Ig variants with altered binding affinity to CD80 and CD86, we employed a high-throughput protein engineering method to map the ligand binding surface of CTLA-4. The resulting mutagenesis map identified positions critical for the recognition of each ligand on the three CDR-like loops of CTLA-4, consistent with the published site-directed mutagenesis and x-ray crystal structures of the CTLA-4/CD80 and CTLA-4/CD86 complexes. A number of single amino acid substitutions were identified that equally affected the binding affinity of CTLA4-Ig for both ligands as well as those that differentially affected binding. All of the high-affinity variants showed improved off-rates, with the best one being a 17.5-fold improved off-rate over parental CTLA4-Ig binding to CD86. Allostimulation of human CD4(+) T cells showed that improvement of CD80 and CD86 binding activity augmented inhibition of naive and primed T cell activation. In general, increased affinity for CD86 resulted in more potent inhibition of T cell response than did increased affinity for CD80. Optimization of the affinity balance to CD80 and CD86 to particular disease settings may lead to development of a CTLA4-Ig molecule with improved efficacy and safety profiles.

Efficacy of candidate DNA-vaccines based on the variola virus natural gene A30L and artificial gene A30Lopt with modified codon usage, optimized for expression in mammalian cells, was tested. The groups of mice were intracutaneously immunized three times with three-week intervals with candidate DNA-vaccines: pcDNA_A30L or pcDNA_A30Lopt, and in three weeks after the last immunization all mice in the groups were intraperitoneally infected by the ectromelia virus K1 strain in 10 LD50 dose for the estimation of protection. It was shown that the DNA-vaccines based on natural gene A30L and codon-optimized gene A30Lopt elicited virus, thereby neutralizing the antibody response and protected mice from lethal intraperitoneal challenge with the ectromelia virus with lack of statistically significant difference.

Since May 2006, a highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), which causes continuous high fever and a high proportion of deaths in vaccinated pigs of all ages, has emerged and prevailed in Mainland China. Huge efforts should be made towards the development of an efficient vaccine against the highly pathogenic PRRSV. Although the ORF5-encoded GP5 is the most important immunogenic protein, accumulating evidences have demonstrated that incomplete protection conferred by GP5-based vaccines. The inability to induce robust protective immunity has been postulated to be associated with the presence of a non-neutralizing decoy epitope and heavy glycosylation in close to its neutralizing epitope. In this study, a synthetic ORF5 gene (SynORF5) was engineered with the codon usage optimized for mammalian cell expression based on the native ORF5 gene of highly pathogenic PRRSV strain WUH3. Additional modifications, i.e., inserting a Pan DR T-helper cell epitope (PADRE) between the neutralizing epitope and the non-neutralizing decoy epitope, and mutating four potential N-glycosylation sites (N30, N34, N35 and N51) were also included in the synthetic ORF5 gene. The immunogenicity of the SynORF5-encoded GP5 was evaluated by DNA vaccination in mice and piglets. Results showed that significantly enhanced GP5-specific ELISA antibody, PRRSV-specific neutralizing antibody, IFN-gamma level, as well as lymphocyte proliferation response, could be induced in mice and piglets immunized with DNA construct encoding the modified GP5 than those received DNA vaccine expressing the native GP5. The enhanced immunogenicity of the modified GP5 will be useful to facilitate the development of efficient vaccines against the highly pathogenic PRRSV in the future.

The early proteins E6 and E7 of the cancer-related human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV 16) are constitutively expressed in cancer cells thus are targets for immune therapeutic approaches. Whereas previous studies have mainly focussed on the immunogenicity of E7 protein little is known about E6. In order to evaluate E6-specific DNA immunization strategies in a preclinical mouse model C57BL/6 mice were injected with plasmid pTHampE6 and analyzed for E6-specific CTL induction. CTL specific for the H2-K(b)-restricted E6-derived epitope E6 48-57, were readily detectable among splenocytes of immunized animals, however, these CTL showed a differential recognition pattern on various E6-expressing target cells. Using a newly generated E6-specific monoclonal antibody we found that most cell lines expressing E6 encoded by the natural gene showed undetectable protein amounts and were ignored by E6-specific CTL. However, transfection of a codon optimized version of the E6 gene (E6opt) strongly enhanced protein expression levels within these cells turning them into susceptible target cells. Surprisingly, we found that E6-positive TC-1 cells, although recognized by E6-specific CTL, were totally devoid of any detectable E6 protein. Inhibition of proteasomal function by lactacystin treatment diminished E6-specific CTL recognition of TC-1 cells and RMA/E6opt transfectants accompanied by intracellular accumulation of E6 protein as observed in RMA/E6opt transfectants, but not in TC-1 cells. These data suggest that in TC-1 cells rapid degradation processes might prevent stable expression of E6 protein yet generate precursor peptides in amounts sufficient for MHC class I restricted antigen presentation. Thus, the results presented in this paper show that: (i) use of optimized codons in transfection experiments can improve susceptibility of target cells to E6-specific CTL recognition and (ii) lack of detectable protein within a cell does not necessarily indicate the absence of epitope presentation. Both findings are of potential relevance for the design of tumor vaccines.

This study was conducted to compare the expression of three constructs of a multistage candidate vaccine (FALVAC-1) against Plasmodium falciparum in an Escherichia coli system: a synthetic gene with P. falciparum codons, a synthetic gene with optimized E. coli codons, and a synthetic gene with P. falciparum codons co-transformed with a RIG plasmid, which encodes three tRNAs (AG(A/G), ATA, GGA) that recognize rare E. coli codons. The expression of the protein increased at least threefold with codon optimization. The presence of the RIG plasmid in the co-transforming cells did not significantly increase the expression level of the gene with P. falciparum codons. The growth of cells transformed by the construct with P. falciparum codons was significantly slower than that of cells transformed by the construct with optimized E. coli codons after induction of protein expression with IPTG. The cells containing the non-codon optimized gene co-expressed with RIG plasmid had the slowest growth at all time points in culture. Thus, codon optimization significantly increases the yield of P. falciparum candidate vaccines in the E. coli expression system.

Clinical utility of murine mAbs is limited because many elicit Abs to murine Ig constant and variable regions in patients. An Ab humanized by the current procedure of grafting all the complementarity determining regions (CDRs) of a murine Ab onto the human Ab frameworks is likely to be less immunogenic, except that its murine CDRs could still evoke an anti-variable region response. Previous studies with anticarcinoma mAb CC49 showed that light chain LCDR1 and LCDR2 of humanized CC49 could be replaced with the corresponding CDRs of a human Ab with minimal loss of Ag-binding activity. The studies reported in this paper were undertaken to dissect the CC49 Ag-binding site to identify 1) specificity determining residues (SDRs), the residues of the hypervariable region that are most critical in Ag-Ab interaction, and 2) those residues that contribute to the idiotopes that are potential targets of patients' immune responses. A panel of variants generated by genetic manipulation of the murine CC49 hypervariable regions were evaluated for their relative Ag-binding affinity and reactivity to sera from several patients who had been immunized with murine CC49. One variant, designated HuCC49V10, retained only the SDRs of CC49 and does not react with the anti-variable region Abs of the sera from the murine CC49-treated patients. These studies thus demonstrate that the genetic manipulation of Ab variable regions can be accomplished by grafting only the SDRs of a xenogeneic Ab onto human Ab frameworks. This approach may reduce the immunogenicity of Abs to a minimum.

There is considerable interest in the development of vaccination strategies that would elicit strong tumor-specific CTL responses in cancer patients. One strategy consists of using recombinant viruses encoding amino acid sequences corresponding to natural CTL-defined peptide from tumor Ags as immunogens. However, studies with synthetic tumor antigenic peptides have demonstrated that introduction of single amino acid substitutions may dramatically increase their immunogenicity. In this study we have used a well-defined human melanoma tumor Ag system to test the possibility of translating the immunological potency of synthetic tumor antigenic peptide analogues into recombinant vaccinia viruses carrying constructs with the appropriate nucleotide substitutions. Our results indicate that the use of a mutated minigene construct directing the expression of a modified melanoma tumor Ag leads to improved Ag recognition and, more importantly, to enhanced immunogenicity. Thus, recombinant vaccinia viruses containing mutated minigene sequences may lead to new strategies for the induction of strong tumor-specific CTL responses in cancer patients.

DNA immunization with HIV envelope plasmids induce only moderate levels of specific antibodies which may in part be due to limitations in expression influenced by a species-specific and biased HIV codon usage. We compared antibody levels, Th1/Th2 type and CTL responses induced by synthetic genes encoding membrane bound gp160 versus secreted gp120 using optimized codons and the efficient gene gun immunization method. The in vitro expression of syn.gp160 as gp120 + gp41 was Rev independent and much higher than a classical wt.gp160 plasmid. Mice immunized with syn.gp160 and wt.gp160 generated low and inconsistent ELISA antibody titres whereas the secreted gp120 consistently induced faster seroconversion and higher antibody titres. Due to a higher C + G content the numbers of putative CpG immune (Th1) stimulatory motifs were highest in the synthetic gp160 gene. However, both synthetic genes induced an equally strong and more pronounced Th2 response with higher IgG1/IgG2a and IFNgamma/IL-4 ratios than the wt.gp160 gene. As for induction of CTL, synthetic genes induced a somewhat earlier response but did not offer any advantage over wild type genes at a later time point. Thus, optimizing codon usage has the advantage of rendering the structural HIV genes Rev independent. For induction of antibodies the level of expression, while important, seems less critical than optimal contact with antigen presenting cells at locations reached by the secreted gp120 protein. A proposed Th1 adjuvant effect of the higher numbers of CpG motifs in the synthetic genes was not seen using gene gun immunization which may be due to the low amount of DNA used.

We describe a method for retrieving sequences with one or two point mutations of a given target sequence, which are present in a DNA population at a frequency of 1 in 466 x 10(3) and 1 in 28 x 10(3) molecules, respectively. By stringent hybridization to a stable, chemically immobilized probe, a large excess of unrelated fragments is removed, and the bound sequences are dissociated and amplified. By repeating the hybridization-amplification cycles twice, we achieved an estimated enrichment of 404,000-fold and 1612-fold, respectively, which was confirmed by cloning the resultant products and sequencing 35 clones. This procedure can be applied to retrieve mutated sequences that exist at an extremely low frequency in a DNA population.

A synthetic antifreeze protein gene was expressed in plants and reduced electrolyte leakage from the leaves at freezing temperatures. The synthetic AFP was expressed as a fusion to a signal peptide, directing it to the extracytoplasmic space where ice crystallization first occurs. The gene was introduced to Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Russet Burbank by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Transformants were identified by PCR screening and expression of the introduced protein was verified by immunoblot. Electrolyte-release analysis of transgenic plant leaves established a correlation between the level of transgenic protein expression and degree of tolerance to freezing. This is the first identification of a phenotype associated with antifreeze protein expression in plant tissue.

We expressed two regions of the serine repeat antigen (SERA) protein of Plasmodium falciparum in Escherichia coli by synthesizing the genes with a changed codon usage. One of the synthetic gene sequences encodes amino acid residues 17-382 (SE47') and the other encodes amino acid residues 586-802 (SE50A). The products produced by the synthetic gene sequences in E. coli accounted for 15-30% of the total bacterial protein. Antisera against both the purified gene products prepared in rats inhibited malaria parasite growth in vitro. The anti-SE47' serum was significantly more inhibitory than the anti-SE50A serum. The described methods provide a large scale preparation of recombinant antigens for improving and producing malaria vaccine.

A novel synthetic 323-bp gene with the open reading frame of a multiple-epitope polypeptide has been assembled and cloned. The gene is engineered by contiguous alignment of selected epitopes and functional domains of the hepatitis B virus envelope proteins separated by pairs of glycine residues. High-level bacterial production of this 100-amino acid (approx. 10 kDa) protein has been achieved and the gene product is stable. ELISA and Western blot experiments using epitope-specific antisera confirm that the corresponding epitopes are present in the engineered protein.