RESUMO
Staphylococcus aureus has been acquiring multiple drug resistance and has evolved into superbugs such as Methicillin/Vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA/VRSA) and, consequently, is a major cause of nosocomial and community infections associated with high morbidity and mortality for which no FDA-approved vaccines or biotherapeutics are available. Previous efforts targeting the surface-associated antigens have failed in clinical testing. Here, we generated hyperimmune products from sera in rabbits against six major S. aureus toxins targeted by an experimental vaccine (IBT-V02) and demonstrated significant efficacy for an anti-virulence passive immunization strategy. Extensive in vitro binding and neutralizing titers were analyzed against six extracellular toxins from individual animal sera. All IBT-V02 immunized animals elicited the maximum immune response upon the first boost dose against all pore-forming vaccine components, while for superantigen (SAgs) components of the vaccine, second and third doses of a boost were needed to reach a plateau in binding and toxin neutralizing titers. Importantly, both anti-staphylococcus hyperimmune products consisting of full-length IgG (IBT-V02-IgG) purified from the pooled sera and de-speciated F(ab')2 (IBT-V02-F(ab')2) retained the binding and neutralizing titers against IBT-V02 target toxins. F(ab')2 also exhibited cross-neutralization titers against three leukotoxins (HlgAB, HlgCB, and LukED) and four SAgs (SEC1, SED, SEK, and SEQ) which were not part of IBT-V02. F(ab')2 also neutralized toxins in bacterial culture supernatant from major clinical strains of S. aureus. In vivo efficacy data generated in bacteremia and pneumonia models using USA300 S. aureus strain demonstrated dose-dependent protection by F(ab')2. These efficacy data confirmed the staphylococcal toxins as viable targets and support the further development effort of hyperimmune products as a potential adjunctive therapy for emergency uses against life-threatening S. aureus infections.
Assuntos
Bacteriemia , Staphylococcus aureus Resistente à Meticilina , Pneumonia , Animais , Imunoglobulina G/farmacologia , Camundongos , Coelhos , Staphylococcus aureus , SuperantígenosRESUMO
Superantigens (SAgs) play a major role in the pathogenesis of Staphylococcus aureus and are associated with several diseases, including food poisoning, bacterial arthritis, and toxic shock syndrome. Monoclonal antibodies to these SAgs, primarily TSST-1, SEB and SEA have been shown to provide protection in animal studies and to reduce clinical severity in bacteremic patients. Here we quantify the pre-existing antibodies against SAgs in many human plasma and IVIG samples and demonstrate that in a major portion of the population these antibody titers are suboptimal and IVIG therapy only incrementally elevates the anti-SAg titers. Our in vitro neutralization studies show that a combination of antibodies against SEA, SEB,and TSST-1 can provide broad neutralization of staphylococcal SAgs. We report a single fusion protein (TBA225) consisting of the toxoid versions of TSST-1, SEB and SEA and demonstrate its immunogenicity and protective efficacy in a mouse model of toxic shock. Antibodies raised against this fusion vaccine provide broad neutralization of purified SAgs and culture supernatants of multiple clinically relevant S. aureus strains. Our data strongly supports the use of this fusion protein as a component of an anti-virulence based multivalent toxoid vaccine against S. aureus disease.
Assuntos
Enterotoxinas/toxicidade , Proteínas Recombinantes de Fusão/farmacologia , Toxoide Estafilocócico/farmacologia , Staphylococcus aureus , Superantígenos/toxicidade , Animais , Enterotoxinas/química , Enterotoxinas/genética , Enterotoxinas/imunologia , Feminino , Humanos , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos BALB C , Proteínas Recombinantes de Fusão/química , Proteínas Recombinantes de Fusão/genética , Proteínas Recombinantes de Fusão/imunologia , Toxoide Estafilocócico/química , Toxoide Estafilocócico/genética , Toxoide Estafilocócico/imunologia , Staphylococcus aureus/química , Staphylococcus aureus/genética , Staphylococcus aureus/imunologia , Superantígenos/química , Superantígenos/genética , Superantígenos/imunologiaRESUMO
Staphylococcus aureus (SA) infections cause high mortality and morbidity in humans. Being central to its pathogenesis, S. aureus thwarts the host defense by secreting a myriad of virulence factors, including bicomponent, pore-forming leukotoxins. While all vaccine development efforts that aimed at achieving opsonophagocytic killing have failed, targeting virulence by toxoid vaccines represents a novel approach to preventing mortality and morbidity that are caused by SA. The recently discovered leukotoxin LukAB kills human phagocytes and monocytes and it is present in all known S. aureus clinical isolates. While using a structure-guided approach, we generated a library of mutations that targeted functional domains within the LukAB heterodimer to identify attenuated toxoids as potential vaccine candidates. The mutants were evaluated based on expression, solubility, yield, biophysical properties, cytotoxicity, and immunogenicity, and several fully attenuated LukAB toxoids that were capable of eliciting high neutralizing antibody titers were identified. Rabbit polyclonal antibodies against the lead toxoid candidate provided potent neutralization of LukAB. While the neutralization of LukAB alone was not sufficient to fully suppress leukotoxicity in supernatants of S. aureus USA300 isolates, a combination of antibodies against LukAB, α-toxin, and Panton-Valentine leukocidin completely neutralized the cytotoxicity of these strains. These data strongly support the inclusion of LukAB toxoids in a multivalent toxoid vaccine for the prevention of S. aureus disease.
Assuntos
Proteínas de Bactérias/imunologia , Vacinas Bacterianas , Leucocidinas/imunologia , Infecções Estafilocócicas/prevenção & controle , Toxoides/imunologia , Animais , Proteínas de Bactérias/genética , Sobrevivência Celular , Escherichia coli/genética , Feminino , Células HL-60 , Humanos , Leucocidinas/genética , Camundongos Endogâmicos ICR , Monócitos , Células THP-1 , Toxoides/genéticaRESUMO
A novel avian-origin influenza A H7N9 virus emerged in China in 2013 and continues to cause sporadic human infections with mortality rates approaching 35%. Currently there are no approved human vaccines for H7N9 virus. Recombinant approaches including hemagglutinin (HA) and virus-like particles (VLPs) have resulted in experimental vaccines with advantageous safety and manufacturing characteristics. While high immunogenicity of VLP vaccines has been attributed to the native conformation of HA arranged in the regular repeated patterns within virus-like structures, there is limited data regarding molecular organization of HA within recombinant HA vaccine preparations. In this study, the full-length recombinant H7 protein (rH7) of A/Anhui/1/2013 (H7N9) virus was expressed in Sf9 cells. We showed that purified full-length rH7 retained functional ability to agglutinate red blood cells and formed oligomeric pleomorphic subviral particles (SVPs) of â¼20nm in diameter composed of approximately 10 HA0 molecules. No significant quantities of free monomeric HA0 were observed in rH7 preparation by size exclusion chromatography. Immunogenicity and protective efficacy of rH7 SVPs was confirmed in the mouse and ferret challenge models suggesting that SVPs can be used for vaccination against H7N9 virus.
Assuntos
Glicoproteínas de Hemaglutininação de Vírus da Influenza/imunologia , Subtipo H7N9 do Vírus da Influenza A/imunologia , Vacinas contra Influenza/imunologia , Infecções por Orthomyxoviridae/prevenção & controle , Vacinas de Partículas Semelhantes a Vírus/imunologia , Animais , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Feminino , Furões , Hemaglutinação , Vacinas contra Influenza/administração & dosagem , Masculino , Camundongos Endogâmicos BALB C , Multimerização Proteica , Proteínas Recombinantes/imunologia , Células Sf9 , Spodoptera , Vacinas Sintéticas/administração & dosagem , Vacinas Sintéticas/imunologia , Vacinas de Partículas Semelhantes a Vírus/administração & dosagemRESUMO
S. aureus vaccine development has proven particularly difficult. The conventional approach to achieve sterile immunity through opsonophagocytic killing has been largely unsuccessful. S. aureus is highly toxigenic and a great body of evidence suggests that a successful future vaccine for this organism should target extracellular toxins which are responsible for host tissue destruction and immunosuppression. Major staphylococcal toxins are alpha toxin (a single subunit hemolysin) along with a group of bicomponent pore-forming toxins (BCPFT), namely Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL), gamma hemolysins (HlgCB and AB), LukAB and LukED. In our previous report, an attenuated mutant of LukS-PV (PVL- S subunit) named as "LukS-mut9" elicited high immunogenic response as well as provided a significant protection in a mouse sepsis model. Recent discovery of PVL receptors shows that mice lack receptors for this toxin, thus the reported protection of mice with the PVL vaccine may relate to cross protective responses against other homologous toxins. This manuscript addresses this issue by demonstrating that polyclonal antibody generated by LukS-mut9 can neutralize other canonical and non-canonical leukotoxin pairs. In this report, we also demonstrated that several potent toxins can be created by non-canonical pairing of subunits. Out of 5 pairs of canonical and 8 pairs of non-canonical toxins tested, anti-LukS-mut9 polyclonal antibodies neutralized all except for LukAB. We also studied the potential hemolytic activities of canonical and noncanonical pairs among biocomponent toxins and discovered that a novel non-canonical pair consisting of HlgA and LukD is a highly toxic combination. This pair can lyse RBC from different species including human blood far better than alpha hemolysin. Moreover, to follow-up our last report, we explored the correlation between the levels of pre-existing antibodies to new sets of leukotoxins subunits and clinical outcomes in adult patients with S. aureus bacteremia. We found that there is an inversed correlation between the antibody titer to sepsis for leukotoxins LukS-mut9, LukF-PV, HlgC, LukE and LukAB, suggesting the risk of sepsis was significantly lower in the patients with higher antibody titer against those toxins.
Assuntos
Proteínas de Bactérias/imunologia , Leucocidinas/imunologia , Vacinas Antiestafilocócicas/imunologia , Staphylococcus aureus/imunologia , Adulto , Animais , Anticorpos/imunologia , Proteínas de Bactérias/genética , Proteínas de Bactérias/toxicidade , Toxinas Bacterianas/genética , Toxinas Bacterianas/imunologia , Toxinas Bacterianas/toxicidade , Reações Cruzadas , Testes Imunológicos de Citotoxicidade , Exotoxinas/genética , Exotoxinas/imunologia , Exotoxinas/toxicidade , Feminino , Humanos , Leucocidinas/genética , Leucocidinas/toxicidade , Camundongos Endogâmicos BALB C , Camundongos Endogâmicos ICR , Testes de Neutralização , Coelhos , Infecções Estafilocócicas/microbiologia , Vacinas Antiestafilocócicas/farmacologia , Staphylococcus aureus/patogenicidade , Vacinas Atenuadas/imunologiaRESUMO
SARS-CoV was the cause of the global pandemic in 2003 that infected over 8000 people in 8 months. Vaccines against SARS are still not available. We developed a novel method to produce high levels of a recombinant SARS virus-like particles (VLPs) vaccine containing the SARS spike (S) protein and the influenza M1 protein using the baculovirus insect cell expression system. These chimeric SARS VLPs have a similar size and morphology to the wild type SARS-CoV. We tested the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of purified chimeric SARS VLPs and full length SARS S protein vaccines in a mouse lethal challenge model. The SARS VLP vaccine, containing 0.8 µg of SARS S protein, completely protected mice from death when administered intramuscular (IM) or intranasal (IN) routes in the absence of an adjuvant. Likewise, the SARS VLP vaccine, containing 4 µg of S protein without adjuvant, reduced lung virus titer to below detectable level, protected mice from weight loss, and elicited a high level of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV. Sf9 cell-produced full length purified SARS S protein was also an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV but only when co-administered IM with aluminum hydroxide. SARS-CoV VLPs are highly immunogenic and induce neutralizing antibodies and provide protection against lethal challenge. Sf9 cell-based VLP vaccines are a potential tool to provide protection against novel pandemic agents.
Assuntos
Glicoproteínas de Membrana/genética , Glicoproteínas de Membrana/imunologia , Síndrome Respiratória Aguda Grave/prevenção & controle , Coronavírus Relacionado à Síndrome Respiratória Aguda Grave/imunologia , Proteínas do Envelope Viral/genética , Proteínas do Envelope Viral/imunologia , Proteínas da Matriz Viral/genética , Vacinas Virais/imunologia , Adjuvantes Imunológicos/administração & dosagem , Hidróxido de Alumínio/administração & dosagem , Animais , Anticorpos Neutralizantes/sangue , Anticorpos Antivirais/sangue , Baculoviridae/genética , Peso Corporal , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Feminino , Vetores Genéticos , Insetos , Pulmão/virologia , Glicoproteínas de Membrana/metabolismo , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos BALB C , Multimerização Proteica , Proteínas Recombinantes/genética , Proteínas Recombinantes/imunologia , Proteínas Recombinantes/metabolismo , Doenças dos Roedores/prevenção & controle , Coronavírus Relacionado à Síndrome Respiratória Aguda Grave/genética , Glicoproteína da Espícula de Coronavírus , Análise de Sobrevida , Vacinas Virossomais/genética , Vacinas Virossomais/imunologia , Proteínas do Envelope Viral/metabolismo , Carga Viral , Proteínas da Matriz Viral/metabolismo , Vacinas Virais/genéticaRESUMO
The pandemic virus of 2009 (2009 H1N1) continues to cause illness worldwide, especially in younger age groups. The widespread H1N1 virus infection further emphasizes the need for vaccine strategies that are effective against emerging pandemic viruses and are not dependent on the limitations of traditional egg-based technology. This report describes a recombinant influenza virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine consisting of hemagglutinin (HA), neuraminidase (NA), and matrix (M1) proteins of influenza A/California/04/2009 (H1N1) virus. Influenza H1N1 VLPs with a diameter of approximately 120nm were released into the culture medium from Sf9 insect cells infected with recombinant baculovirus coexpressing HA, NA, and M1 proteins. Purified recombinant H1N1 VLPs morphologically resembled influenza virions and exhibited biological characteristics of influenza virus, including HA and NA activities. In the ferret challenge model, 2009 influenza H1N1 VLPs elicited high-titer serum hemagglutination inhibition (HI) antibodies specific for the 2009 H1N1 virus and inhibited replication of the influenza virus in the upper and lower respiratory tract tissues following A/Mexico/4482/09 (H1N1) virus challenge. Moreover, a single 15mug dose of H1N1 VLPs resulted in complete virus clearance in the ferret lung. These results provide support for the use of recombinant influenza VLP vaccine as an effective strategy against pandemic H1N1 virus.