Enhanced epitope immunoreactivity of the dominant epitope of Toxoplasma gondii fused at the

Xiaochun TAN; Zhongmin LIN; Jinhui LV; Zixin XIE; Xinan CHEN; Wenshu LI

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Enhanced epitope immunoreactivity of the dominant epitope of Toxoplasma gondii fused at the "N terminus" of HPV16L1.

Author: Xiaochun TAN ¹ ; Zhongmin LIN ² ; Jinhui LV ³ ; Zixin XIE ¹ ; Xinan CHEN ¹ ; Wenshu LI ¹
Author Information

1. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang, China.
2. Department of Pathology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang, China.
3. Research Center for Translational Medicine, East Hospital Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200000, China.
Publication Type:Journal Article
Keywords: HPV16L1; Toxoplasma gondii; fusion; immunological effect
MeSH: Animals; Antibody Formation; Epitopes; Immunization; Mice; Mice, Inbred BALB C; Toxoplasma; Vaccination; Vaccines, DNA
From: Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2021;37(1):290-300
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: For improving epitope immunogenicity and achieving the co-immunization, late protein 1 (L1) of HPV type 16 (HPV16L1) was selected as the vector to carry the dominant epitope of Toxoplasma gondii because of the shared common population between Toxoplasma gondii and human papillomavirus (HPV). RSepitope-HPV16L1 (RSepitope fused at the "N-terminus" of HPV16L1) and HPV16L1-RSepitope (RSepitope fused at the "C-terminus" of HPV16L1) chimeras were constructed. After transfection of COS-7 cells with the recombinants, Western blot, RT-PCR, and immunofluorescence experiments confirmed that RSepitope-HPV16L1 could successfully express the corresponding mRNA and protein of RSepitope and HPV16L1, but the HPV16L1-RSepitope construct could not. A "prime-boost" immunization program was applied in mice to further evaluate the immune response elicited by the constructs, and the RSepitope-HPV16L1 immunization group produced the most significantly increased humoral and cellular immune responses (the highest RSepitope-specific IgG antibody level and the highest IFN-γ production, respectively), in which both elevated Th1 and Th2 immune responses were obtained. Moreover, the advantage of HPV16L1 as an epitope carrier was remarkable for RSepitope-HPV16L1, which induced a more prominent immunological response than RSepitope alone (without fusion with HPV16L1). Our research indicated that the N-terminus of HPV16L1 could be a better insertion site for enhancing target epitope immunogenicity, and our study offers a design for epitope vaccine of reasonable combination.