Phenotypic determinism and stochasticity in antibody repertoires of clonally expanded plasma cells.

The capacity of humoral B cell-mediated immunity to effectively respond to and protect against pathogenic infections is largely driven by the presence of a diverse repertoire of polyclonal antibodies in the serum, which are produced by plasma cells (PCs). Recent studies have started to reveal the balance between deterministic mechanisms and stochasticity of antibody repertoires on a genotypic level (i.e., clonal diversity, somatic hypermutation, and germline gene usage). However, it remains unclear if clonal selection and expansion of PCs follow any deterministic rules or are stochastic with regards to phenotypic antibody properties (i.e., antigen-binding, affinity, and epitope specificity). Here, we report on the in-depth genotypic and phenotypic characterization of clonally expanded PC antibody repertoires following protein immunization. We find that clonal expansion drives antigen specificity of the most expanded clones (top ∼10), whereas among the rest of the clonal repertoire antigen specificity is stochastic. Furthermore, we report both on a polyclonal repertoire and clonal lineage level that antibody-antigen binding affinity does not correlate with clonal expansion or somatic hypermutation. Last, we provide evidence for convergence toward targeting dominant epitopes despite clonal sequence diversity among the most expanded clones. Our results highlight the extent to which clonal expansion can be ascribed to antigen binding, affinity, and epitope specificity, and they have implications for the assessment of effective vaccines.

Profiling the specificity of clonally expanded plasma cells during chronic viral infection by single-cell analysis.

Plasma cells and their secreted antibodies play a central role in the long-term protection against chronic viral infection. However, due to experimental limitations, a comprehensive description of linked genotypic, phenotypic, and antibody repertoire features of plasma cells (gene expression, clonal frequency, virus specificity, and affinity) has been challenging to obtain. To address this, we performed single-cell transcriptome and antibody repertoire sequencing of the murine BM plasma cell population following chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection. Our single-cell sequencing approach recovered full-length and paired heavy- and light-chain sequence information for thousands of plasma cells and enabled us to perform recombinant antibody expression and specificity screening. Antibody repertoire analysis revealed that, relative to protein immunization, chronic infection led to increased levels of clonal expansion, class-switching, and somatic variants. Furthermore, antibodies from the highly expanded and class-switched (IgG) plasma cells were found to be specific for multiple viral antigens and a subset of clones exhibited cross-reactivity to nonviral and autoantigens. Integrating single-cell transcriptome data with antibody specificity suggested that plasma cell transcriptional phenotype was correlated to viral antigen specificity. Our findings demonstrate that chronic viral infection can induce and sustain plasma cell clonal expansion, combined with significant somatic hypermutation, and can generate cross-reactive antibodies.

Boosting subdominant neutralizing antibody responses with a computationally designed epitope-focused immunogen.

Throughout the last several decades, vaccination has been key to prevent and eradicate infectious diseases. However, many pathogens (e.g., respiratory syncytial virus [RSV], influenza, dengue, and others) have resisted vaccine development efforts, largely because of the failure to induce potent antibody responses targeting conserved epitopes. Deep profiling of human B cells often reveals potent neutralizing antibodies that emerge from natural infection, but these specificities are generally subdominant (i.e., are present in low titers). A major challenge for next-generation vaccines is to overcome established immunodominance hierarchies and focus antibody responses on crucial neutralization epitopes. Here, we show that a computationally designed epitope-focused immunogen presenting a single RSV neutralization epitope elicits superior epitope-specific responses compared to the viral fusion protein. In addition, the epitope-focused immunogen efficiently boosts antibodies targeting the palivizumab epitope, resulting in enhanced neutralization. Overall, we show that epitope-focused immunogens can boost subdominant neutralizing antibody responses in vivo and reshape established antibody hierarchies.

Recombinant lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus-based vaccine vector protects type I interferon receptor deficient mice from viral challenge.

Reverse genetically engineered recombinant lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (rLCMV) is a novel vaccine vector platform. Here, we investigate the safety and efficacy of rLCMV in mice lacking a functional type I interferon system with high susceptibility to viral infections. Propagation-deficient rLCMV vector expressing ovalbumin as a model antigen is cleared from type I interferon receptor-deficient mice (Ifnar-/-) within seven days post vaccination. In Ifnar-/-, induction of vaccine antigen specific T cells is delayed compared to wild type animals. However, immunization of Ifnar-/- results in potent memory formation and generates multifunctional cytotoxic CD8+ T cells. Most importantly, Ifnar-/- vaccinated with rLCMV are protected from a challenge with the aggressive LCMV Clone 13. Our data provide evidence for an excellent safety profile with maintained efficacy in immunocompromised animals.

Immune Literacy: Reading, Writing, and Editing Adaptive Immunity.

Advances in reading, writing, and editing DNA are providing unprecedented insights into the complexity of immunological systems. This combination of systems and synthetic biology methods is enabling the quantitative and precise understanding of molecular recognition in adaptive immunity, thus providing a framework for reprogramming immune responses for translational medicine. In this review, we will highlight state-of-the-art methods such as immune repertoire sequencing, immunoinformatics, and immunogenomic engineering and their application toward adaptive immunity. We showcase novel and interdisciplinary approaches that have the promise of transforming the design and breadth of molecular and cellular immunotherapies.

Antibody discovery and engineering by enhanced CRISPR-Cas9 integration of variable gene cassette libraries in mammalian cells.

Antibody engineering in mammalian cells offers the important advantage of expression and screening of libraries in their native conformation, increasing the likelihood of generating candidates with more favorable molecular properties. Major advances in cellular engineering enabled by CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing have made it possible to expand the use of mammalian cells in biotechnological applications. Here, we describe an antibody engineering and screening approach where complete variable light (VL) and heavy (VH) chain cassette libraries are stably integrated into the genome of hybridoma cells by enhanced Cas9-driven homology-directed repair (HDR), resulting in their surface display and secretion. By developing an improved HDR donor format that utilizes in situ linearization, we are able to achieve >15-fold improvement of genomic integration, resulting in a screening workflow that only requires a simple plasmid electroporation. This proved suitable for different applications in antibody discovery and engineering. By integrating and screening an immune library obtained from the variable gene repertoire of an immunized mouse, we could isolate a diverse panel of >40 unique antigen-binding variants. Additionally, we successfully performed affinity maturation by directed evolution screening of an antibody library based on random mutagenesis, leading to the isolation of several clones with affinities in the picomolar range.

Molecular Design, Optimization, and Genomic Integration of Chimeric B Cell Receptors in Murine B Cells.

Immune cell therapies based on the integration of synthetic antigen receptors comprise a powerful strategy for the treatment of diverse diseases, most notably T cells engineered to express chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) for targeted cancer therapy. In addition to T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes may also represent valuable immune cells that can be engineered for therapeutic purposes such as protein replacement therapy or recombinant antibody production. In this article, we report a promising concept for the molecular design, optimization, and genomic integration of a novel class of synthetic antigen receptors, chimeric B cell receptors (CBCR). We initially optimized CBCR expression and detection by modifying the extracellular surface tag, the transmembrane regions and intracellular signaling domains. For this purpose, we stably integrated a series of CBCR variants using CRISPR-Cas9 into immortalized B cell hybridomas. Subsequently, we developed a reliable and consistent pipeline to precisely introduce cassettes of several kb size into the genome of primary murine B cells also using CRISPR-Cas9 induced HDR. Finally, we were able to show the robust surface expression and antigen recognition of a synthetic CBCR in primary B cells. We anticipate CBCRs and our approach for engineering primary B cells will be a valuable tool for the advancement of future B cell- based immune cell therapies.