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Method Article
A novel technique for rapid antigen display on a bacterial surface is presented, which involves surface biotinylation followed by exposure to proteins of interest in fusion with monomeric avidin. Loading BCG with selected antigens successfully improves its immunogenicity, suggesting that surface decoration can replace traditional genetic approaches.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious infectious disease and the only available vaccine M. bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is safe and effective for protection against children's severe TB meningitis and some forms of disseminated TB, but fails to protect against pulmonary TB, which is the most prevalent form of the disease. Promising strategies to improve BCG currently rely either on its transformation with genes encoding immunodominant M. tuberculosis (Mtb)-specific antigens and/or complementation with genes encoding co-factors that would stimulate antigen presenting cells. Major limitations to these approaches include low efficiency, low stability, and the uncertain level of safety of expression vectors. In this study, we present an alternative approach to vaccine improvement, which consists of BCG complementation with exogenous proteins of interest on the surface of bacteria, rather than transformation with plasmids encoding corresponding genes. First, proteins of interest are expressed in fusion with monomeric avidin in standard E. coli expression systems and then used to decorate the surface of biotinylated BCG. Animal experiments using BCG surface decorated with surrogate ovalbumin antigen demonstrate that the modified bacterium is fully immunogenic and capable of inducing specific T cell responses. Altogether, the data presented here strongly support a novel and efficient method for reshaping the current BCG vaccine that replaces the laborious conventional approach of complementation with exogenous nucleic acids.
Various strategies have been proposed to replace the current TB vaccine BCG, including protein adjuvant systems, viral vectored technologies, attenuated live M.tb strains, and genetically modified BCG strains, either to introduce genes over-expressing BCG antigens that are not sufficiently expressed during infection1 or Mtb-specific antigens not present in BCG2. Genetic engineering, however, faces many barriers including the uncertain level of safety, the time-consuming process, and the low efficiency of expression vectors4,5. With regards to improving BCG, an alternate approach is needed to improve immunogenicity without the need for uncertain genetic alternations.
In this study, we introduce a novel strategy for display of recombinant proteins of interest on the BCG cell surface that is based on the well-known high-affinity avidin interaction with biotin. This approach allows rapid and reproducible attachment of recombinant avidin fusion proteins on the surface of biotinylated BCG, which facilitates broad manipulations of BCG to achieve maximal improvement of its efficacy while maintaining its excellent safety record, observed over decades of use.
Avidin affinity for biotin is extremely high (Kd = 10−15 M) and once formed, the biotin-avidin complex is very stable and can only be disrupted under denaturing conditions6. However, for this type of interaction to serve as a gene transfer method alternative, long-term but reversible display of recombinant proteins is required. Thus, we introduced here a low affinity monomeric avidin (Kd = 10−7 M) that leads to the reversible release of protein from the surface decorated BCG once ingested inside antigen presenting cells. In order to provide a proof of concept, we tested this method using a monomeric avidin chimeric protein corresponding to a surrogate antigen derived from ovalbumin (OVA)7,8. The results showed that the BCG cell surface can be easily and rapidly decorated with monomeric avidin fusion proteins and that this binding to the BCG surface is stable and reproducible without detectable changes in bacterial growth and survival. Also, we found that BCG decorated with monomeric avidin fused with OVA (AviOVA) can induce an immune response similar to that induced by BCG genetically expressing the same antigen both in vitro and in vivo. This technology of reversible display of proteins of interest on the bacterial surface is therefore an effective replacement of traditional gene transfer approaches and can provide a platform for broad manipulations of BCG and further applications in vaccine development.
All animals were maintained in accordance with protocols approved by the Animal Care and Use Committees at the University of British Columbia. Experiments were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committees and performed according to the Canadian Council on Animal Care Guidelines. The animal assurance welfare number is A11-0247.
1. Generation of Monomeric Avidin Fusion Proteins Expressing Plasmids
2. Monomeric Avidin Fusion Protein Expression, Purification, and Refolding
3. Biotinylation of BCG Cell Surface
4. Phenotype of Biotinylated Mycobacteria: Growth and Survival
5. Binding of Monomeric Avidin-Fusion Protein to Biotinylated BCG Surface
6. Lyophilization of Mycobacteria
7. Phagocytosis Assay
8. Intracellular Trafficking of OVA Decorated Biotinylated BCG in Macrophages
9. Animal Immunization and Organ Processing
NOTE: All steps should be done in a biosafety cabinet.
10. I-Ab tetramer Staining to Determine the Frequencies of Antigen-Specific CD4+ T Cells and Intracellular Cytokine Staining to Determine Frequencies of Antigen-Specific T Cells Releasing Cytokines in Immunized Animals
With the general procedures described above, the feasibility of BCG surface biotinylation and decoration with surrogate antigen OVA was examined. The immunogenicity of the modified BCG was then tested in vivo. The bacterial surface was easily labeled with biotin for rapid display of avidin chimeric antigens without any detectable changes in bacterial phenotypes. The resulting modified BCG is efficiently ingested by antigen presentation cells and can induce an OVA-specific immune ...
We reported in this study a non-genetic approach for rapid and effective display of exogenous proteins on BCG surface to add either specific antigens or specific functional properties expected to efficiently improve the bacterium's immunogenicity. We demonstrated that the BCG cell surface could be easily biotinylated for instantaneous surface decoration with avidin fusion proteins. The total procedure can be performed within 2 h, while genetic transformation and selection of positive clones requires 2 to 3 months of ...
The authors have nothing to disclose.
We thank Dr. R Stokes for the BCG Pasteur strain and A. Talal for technical support. We also thank GenScript for help with gene synthesis.
Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
Endotoxin-free RPMI 1640 | StemCell Technologies | 36750 | |
Sulfo-NHS SS biotin | Thermo Fisher | 21328 | |
FITC-conjugated streptavidin | Sigma-Aldrich | S3762 | |
Phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated I-Ab-OVA323-339 tetramer | MBL International | TS-M710-1 | |
7-AAD | BD Pharmingen | 559925 | |
TALON polyhistidine-Tag purification resin | Clontech | 635501 | |
Alexa Fluor (AF) 647 conjugated rat anti-mouse CD4 | BD Bioscience | 557681 | |
AF647 rat anti-mouse IFN-g | BD Bioscience | 557735 | |
AF647 rat anti-mouse I-A/I-E | BD Bioscience | 562367 | |
PeCy7 rat anti-mouse CD4 | BD Bioscience | 552775 | |
PE rat anti-mouse CD8 Ab | BD Bioscience | 561095 | |
AF 647 rat anti-mouse H-2kb | BD Bioscience | 562832 | |
FITC-conjugated goat anti rabbit antibody | Thermo Fisher | 31635 | |
AF 647 rat anti-mouse CD4 | BD Bioscience | 557681 | |
Ultra-small gold-conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG | Electron Microscopy Sciences | 25100 | |
Middlebrook 7H9 broth | BD Diagnostic Systems | 271310 | |
OADC | BD Diagnostic Systems | B11886 | |
Tween 80 | Sigma-Aldrich | P1379 | |
RAW 264.7 murine macrophage cell lines | American Type Culture Collection | ||
pDEST17 plasmid | Invitrogen | 11803012 | |
pUC57-OVA plasmid | GenScript | SD1176 | |
BP clonase | Invitrogen | 11789020 | |
LR clonase | Invitrogen | 11791043 | |
pDONR221 plasmid | Invitrogen | 12536017 | |
Ni-NTA columns | Qiagen | 31014 | |
Pierce protein concentrators | Thermo Fisher | 88527 | |
Flurosave | Calbiochem-Novabiochem | 345789 | |
Axioplan II epifluorescence microscope | Carl Zeiss Inc | ||
CCD digital camera | Retiga EX, QImaging | ||
Tecnai G2 200kV electron microscope | FEI Company | G2 200Kv | |
70μm Falcon cell strainer | Thermo Fisher | 87712 | |
EasyStep mouse biotin positive selection kit | StemCell | 18556 | |
biotin-Ter119/Ertyroid cells antibody | BioLegend | 116203 | |
Brefeldin A | BD Pharmingen | 555029 | |
Cytofix/Cytoperm kit | BD Pharmingen | 554714 | |
Bright-Glo Luciferase assay system | Promega | e2620 | |
Turner Biosystem luminometer | Promega | TD-20/20 | |
Leica EM UC6 microtome | Leica Microsystems | UC6 | |
Novalyphe NL 500 freeze dryer | Savant Instruments | NL 50 | |
Wheaton boroscilicate glass vials | Wheaton | VWR 66011-675 |
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