Systems vaccinology approaches have been used to successfully define early signatures of the vaccine-induced immune response. However, the possibility that transcriptomics can also identify a correlate/surrogate for vaccine inflammation has not been fully explored. We have compared four licensed vaccines with known safety profiles, and three agonists of TLRs with known inflammatory potential, to elucidate the transcriptomic profile of an acceptable response to vaccination versus an inflammatory reaction. In mice, we looked at the transcriptomic changes in muscle at the injection site, the lymph node that drained the muscle and the PBMC isolated from the circulating blood from 4 hours and over the period of one week. A detailed examination and comparative analysis of these transcriptomes revealed a set of novel biomarkers reflective of inflammation after vaccination. These biomarkers are readily measurable in the peripheral blood, providing useful surrogates of inflammation, as a way to select candidates with acceptable safety profiles.
Complete microarray data was deposited in NCBI's Gene Expression Omnibus and is accessible through GEO accession number GSE120661.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Animal experimentation: The animal studies were approved by the Ethical Review Board of Imperial College London where the experiments were carried out and work was performed in strict compliance with project and personal animal experimentation licences granted by the UK government in accordance with the Animals in Scientific Procedures Act (1986)- PPL 70-7457 Protocol #1. Animals received minimal handling and their physical condition was monitored at least twice daily. All procedures were performed under isoflurane anaesthesia when appropriate, and all efforts were made to minimise suffering. There was a detailed protocol in place, as per requirement of the humane endpoints described in the animal licence, for early euthanasia in the event of onset of illness or significant deterioration in condition. At the end of the experiment all animals were culled using a schedule 1 method and death confirmed before necropsy. Food and water were supplied ad libitum.
© 2019, McKay et al.
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A potent class of HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) targets the envelope glycoprotein’s membrane proximal exposed region (MPER) through a proposed mechanism where hypervariable loops embed into lipid bilayers and engage headgroup moieties alongside the epitope. We address the feasibility and determinant molecular features of this mechanism using multi-scale modeling. All-atom simulations of 4E10, PGZL1, 10E8, and LN01 docked onto HIV-like membranes consistently form phospholipid complexes at key complementarity-determining region loop sites, solidifying that stable and specific lipid interactions anchor bnAbs to membrane surfaces. Ancillary protein-lipid contacts reveal surprising contributions from antibody framework regions. Coarse-grained simulations effectively capture antibodies embedding into membranes. Simulations estimating protein-membrane interaction strength for PGZL1 variants along an inferred maturation pathway show bilayer affinity is evolved and correlates with neutralization potency. The modeling demonstrated here uncovers insights into lipid participation in antibodies’ recognition of membrane proteins and highlights antibody features to prioritize in vaccine design.
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