Maternal immunisation: collaborating with mother nature
LANCET INFECTIOUS DISEASES
Authors: Marchant, Arnaud; Sadarangani, Manish; Garand, Mathieu; Dauby, Nicolas; Verhasselt, Valerie; Pereira, Lenore; Bjornson, Gordean; Jones, Christine E.; Halperin, Scott A.; Edwards, Kathryn M.; Heath, Paul; Openshaw, Peter J.; Scheifele, David W.; Kollmann, Tobias R.
Abstract
Maternal immunisation has the potential to substantially reduce morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases after birth. The success of tetanus, influenza, and pertussis immunisation during pregnancy has led to consideration of additional maternal immunisation strategies to prevent group B streptococcus and respiratory syncytial virus infections, among others. However, many gaps in knowledge regarding the immunobiology of maternal immunisation prevent the optimal design and application of this successful public health intervention. Therefore, we did an innovative landscape analysis to identify research priorities. Key topics were delineated through review of the published literature, consultation with vaccine developers and regulatory agencies, and a collaborative workshop that gathered experts across several maternal immunisation initiatives-group B streptococcus, respiratory syncytial virus, pertussis, and influenza. Finally, a global online survey prioritised the identified knowledge gaps on the basis of expert opinion about their importance and relevance. Here we present the results of this worldwide landscape analysis and discuss the identified research gaps.
Isolation and characterization of new human carrier peptides from two important vaccine immunogens
VACCINE
Authors: Wantuch, Paeton L.; Sun, Lina; LoPilato, Rachel K.; Mousa, Jarrod J.; Haltiwanger, Robert S.; Avci, Fikri Y.
Abstract
In the preparation of glycoconjugate vaccines in clinical practice, two highly immunogenic carrier proteins, CRM197 and tetanus toxoid (TT), are predominantly conjugated with the capsular polysaccharides (CPSs) of bacterial pathogens. In addition, TT has long been used as an effective vaccine to prevent tetanus. While these carrier proteins play an important role in immunogenicity and vaccine design alike, their defined human major histocompatibility complex class II (MHCII) T cell epitopes are inadequately characterized. In this current work, we use mass spectrometry to identify the peptides from these carrier proteins that are naturally processed and presented by human B cells via MHCII pathway. The MHCII-presented peptides are screened for their T cell stimulation using primary CD4+ T cells from four healthy adult donors. These combined methods reveal a subset of eleven CD4+ T cell epitopes that proliferate and stimulate human T cells with diverse MHCII allelic repertoire. Six of these peptides stand out as potential immunodominant epitopes by responding in three or more donors. Additionally, we provide evidence of these natural epitopes eliciting more significant T cell responses in donors than previously published TT peptides selected from T cell epitope screening. This study serves toward understanding carrier protein immune responses and thus enables the use of these peptides in developing novel knowledge-based vaccines to combat persisting problems in glycoconjugate vaccine design. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.