A research team in Germany has created an innovative system for presenting epitopes in mammalian cells, aimed at vaccination research. The method is expected to significantly aid scientists in their vaccination efforts. Their research was recently published in the journal Biology Methods and Protocols.

Stimulating blood cells to produce antibodies against a specific viral protein is an important step in developing vaccines for use in humans. This can be a challenge for researchers because whether subjects develop antibodies depends on how scientists design and administer antigens, which are pieces of the virus they inject to test the vaccine’s effectiveness.

A very important aspect of virus research is how to express and purify the antigen for vaccination. Animals vaccinated with ready-made antigens produce specific antibodies against the antigen. But scientists need to isolate the antigen so they can develop a vaccine against the specific disease they want to fight. Once researchers purify the antigen, they will be able to develop vaccines that will enable subjects to produce the desired antibodies. But this isolation takes time, especially when trying to develop laboratory-made antigens, because the virus often mutates rapidly. It can take weeks for scientists to develop the correct antigens.

Groundbreaking development in antigen imaging technology

Here, scientists developed a new method to trigger a target-specific immune response. By fusing the antigenic proteins with a tetraspanin-derived anchor membrane protein, the researchers created fusion proteins that are primarily displayed on the surface of human cells. Exposure of proteins on the surface of the carrier protein induces the production of antibodies against the corresponding antigens. An additional advantage is that these antigens have the same conformation and modifications as the corresponding proteins in the virus, as they are produced by cells similar to those in the human body that the virus naturally infects.

This new imaging technology could potentially be a much more reliable vaccination technique. In this study, researchers were able to generate antibodies against different proteins by focusing on the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The engineered anchor protein allows scientists to target a specific disease for vaccination purposes without the need to purify the antigen. Researchers believe this technique can significantly speed up the vaccination process.

“This study is based on the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain and is just the beginning of a very interesting vaccination technique,” said Daniel Ivanushych, one of the authors of the paper. “The most complex, meaningful and exciting application of tANCHOR technology for us is the induction of neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1. I think it will be great!”