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Quillaja Saponin Variants with Central Glycosidic Linkage Modifications Exhibit Distinct Conformations and Adjuvant Activities.

ABSTRACT: Immunological adjuvants such as the saponin natural product QS-21 help stimulate the immune response to co-administered antigens and have become increasingly important in the development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines. However, clinical use of QS21 is encumbered by chemical instability, dose-limiting toxicity, and low-yielding purification from the natural source. Previous studies of structure-activity relationships in the four structural domains of QS-21 have led to simplified, chemically stable variants that retain potent adjuvant activity and low toxicity in mouse vaccination models. However, modification of the central glycosyl ester linkage has not yet been explored. Herein, we describe the design, synthesis, immunologic evaluation, and molecular dynamics analysis of a series of novel QS-21 variants with different linker lengths, stereochemistry, and flexibility to investigate the role of this linkage in saponin adjuvant activity and conformation. Despite relatively conservative structural modifications, these variants exhibit striking differences in in vivo adjuvant activity that correlate with specific conformational preferences. These results highlight the junction of the triterpene and linear oligosaccharide domains as playing a critical role in the immunoadjuvant activity of the Quillaja saponins and also suggest a mechanism of action involving interaction with a discrete macromolecular target, in contrast to the non-specific mechanisms of emulsion-based adjuvants.

SUBMITTER: Walkowicz WE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4800320 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Members of the genus Bifidobacterium are common inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract of humans and other mammals, where they ferment many diet-derived carbohydrates that cannot be digested by their host. To extend our understanding of bifidobacterial carbohydrate utilisation, we investigated the molecular mechanisms by which various strains of Bifidobacterium breve metabolize four distinct α-glucose and/or α-galactose-containing oligosaccharides, namely raffinose, stachyose, melibiose and melezitose. Here we demonstrate that all B. breve strains examined possess the ability to utilise raffinose, stachyose and melibiose. However, the ability to metabolize melezitose was not ubiquitous for all tested B. breve strains. Transcriptomic and functional genomic approaches identified a gene cluster dedicated to the metabolism of α-galactose-containing carbohydrates, while an adjacent gene cluster, dedicated to the metabolism of α-glucose-containing melezitose, was identified, yet being present only in those B. breve strains that were able to support growth on this carbohydrate. DNA-microarrays containing oligonucleotide primers representing each of the 1864 annotated genes on the genome of B. breve UCC2003 (O'Connell Motherway et al., 2011) were designed by and obtained from Agilent Technologies (Palo Alto, Ca., USA). Methods for cell disruption, RNA isolation, RNA quality control, complementary DNA synthesis and labeling were performed as described previously (Pokusaeva et al., 2009). Labeled cDNA was hybridized using the Agilent Gene Expression hybridization kit (part number 5188-5242) as described in the Agilent Two-Color Microarray-Based Gene Expression Analysis v4.0 manual (G4140-90050). Following hybridization, microarrays were washed in accordance with Agilent’s standard procedures and scanned using an Agilent DNA microarray scanner (model G2565A). Generated scans were converted to data files with Agilent's Feature Extraction software (Version 9.5). DNA-microarray data were processed as previously described (Garcia De La Nava et al., 2003). Differential expression tests were performed with the Cyber-T implementation of a variant of the t-test (Long et al., 2001). A gene was considered differentially expressed when p < 0.001 and an expression ratio of >3 or <0.33 relative to the control.

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Quillaja Saponin Variants with Central Glycosidic Linkage Modifications Exhibit Distinct Conformations and Adjuvant Activities.

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