Chemical cross-linking facilitates antigen uptake and presentation and provides improved protection from Mpox with a dual-antigen subunit vaccine.

ABSTRACT: Antigen uptake, processing, and presentation are crucial for the immune responses of protein-based vaccines. Herein, we introduced a reversible chemical cross-linking strategy to engineer protein antigens, which can be tracelessly removed upon antigen-presenting cell (APC) uptake and cellular reduction. The chemically cross-linked antigen proteins presented significantly enhanced uptake and epitope presentation by APC. We applied this strategy to monkeypox virus antigens A29L and A35R to construct dual-antigen subunit vaccines. Our results revealed that chemical cross-linking was robust enough to improve both proteins' APC uptake and lymph node accumulation, with each protein being chemically cross-linked and administered separately. In vivo validation revealed that the chemical cross-link

SUBMITTER: Chen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11707423 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature