Translation of therapeutic vaccines for addiction, cancer or other chronic non-communicable diseases has been slow because only a small subset of immunized subjects achieved effective antibody levels. We hypothesize that individual variability in the number of naïve and early-activated hapten-specific B cells determines post-vaccination serum antibody levels and vaccine efficacy. Using a model vaccine against the highly abused prescription opioid oxycodone, the polyclonal B cell population specific for an oxycodone-based hapten (6OXY) was analyzed by flow cytometry paired with antigen-based magnetic enrichment. A higher frequency of 6OXY-specific B cells in either spleen biopsies or blood, before and after immunization, correlated to subsequent greater oxycodone-specific serum antibody titers and their efficacy in blocking oxycodone distribution to the brain and oxycodone-induced behavior in mice. The magnitude of 6OXY-specific B cell activation and vaccine efficacy was tightly correlated to the size of the CD4+ T cell population. The frequency of enriched 6OXY-specific B cells was consistent across various mouse tissues. These data provide novel evidence that variations in the frequency of naïve or early-activated vaccine-specific B and T cells can account for individual responses to vaccines and may predict the clinical efficacy of a therapeutic vaccine.

Vaccination against the highly abused prescription opioid oxycodone has shown pre-clinical efficacy for blocking oxycodone effects. The current study further evaluated a candidate vaccine composed of oxycodone derivatized at the C6 position (6OXY) conjugated to the native keyhole limpet hemocyanin (nKLH) carrier protein. To provide an oxycodone vaccine formulation suitable for human studies, we studied the effect of alternative carriers and adjuvants on the generation of oxycodone-specific serum antibody and B cell responses, and the effect of immunization on oxycodone distribution and oxycodone-induced antinociception in mice and rats. 6OXY conjugated to tetanus toxoid (TT) or a GMP grade KLH dimer (dKLH) was as effective as 6OXY conjugated to the nKLH decamer in mice and rats, while the 6OXY hapten conjugated to a TT-derived peptide was not effective in preventing oxycodone-induced antinociception in mice. Immunization with 6OXY-TT s.c. absorbed on alum adjuvant provided similar protection to 6OXY-TT administered i.p. with Freund’s adjuvant in rats. The toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) agonist monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA) adjuvant, alone or in combination with alum, offered no advantage over alum alone for generating oxycodone-specific serum antibodies or 6OXY-specific antibody secreting B cells in mice vaccinated with 6OXY-nKLH or 6OXY-TT. The immunogenicity of oxycodone vaccines may be modulated by TLR4 signaling since responses to 6OXY-nKLH in alum were decreased in TLR4-deficient mice. These data suggest that TT, nKLH and dKLH carriers provide consistent 6OXY conjugate vaccine immunogenicity across species, strains and via different routes of administration, while adjuvant formulations may need to be tailored to individual immunogens or patient populations.

DNA–protein cross-links (DPCs) are bulky, helix-distorting DNA lesions that form in the genome upon exposure to common antitumor drugs, environmental/occupational toxins, ionizing radiation, and endogenous free-radical-generating systems. As a result of their considerable size and their pronounced effects on DNA–protein interactions, DPCs can interfere with DNA replication, transcription, and repair, potentially leading to mutagenesis, genotoxicity, and cytotoxicity. However, the biological consequences of these ubiquitous lesions are not fully understood due to the difficulty of generating DNA substrates containing structurally defined, site-specific DPCs. In the present study, site-specific cross-links between the two biomolecules were generated by copper-catalyzed [3 + 2] Huisgen cycloaddition (click reaction) between an alkyne group from 5-(octa-1,7-diynyl)-uracil in DNA and an azide group within engineered proteins/polypeptides. The resulting DPC substrates were subjected to in vitro primer extension in the presence of human lesion bypass DNA polymerases η, κ, ν, and ι. We found that DPC lesions to the green fluorescent protein and a 23-mer peptide completely blocked DNA replication, while the cross-link to a 10-mer peptide was bypassed. These results indicate that the polymerases cannot read through the larger DPC lesions and further suggest that proteolytic degradation may be required to remove the replication block imposed by bulky DPC adducts.

Background: SmgGDS-607 and SmgGDS-558 regulate GTPase movement through the prenylation pathway. Results: The specificity of SmgGDS for GTPases depends on the GTPase CAAX sequence and the cellular context. Conclusion: SmgGDS-607 binds to nonprenylated GTPases that end in a leucine and enter the geranylgeranylation pathway. Significance: The identification of SmgGDS-607 as a novel CAAX-binding protein will accelerate the development of more effective cancer therapeutics.

Photoaffinity labeling is a useful technique employed to identify protein–ligand and protein–protein noncovalent interactions. Photolabeling experiments have been particularly informative for probing membrane-bound proteins where structural information is difficult to obtain. The most widely used classes of photoactive functionalities include aryl azides, diazocarbonyls, diazirines, and benzophenones. Diazirines are intrinsically smaller than benzophenones and generate carbenes upon photolysis that react with a broader range of amino acid side chains compared with the benzophenone-derived diradical; this makes diazirines potentially more general photoaffinity-labeling agents. In this article, we describe the development and application of a new isoprenoid analogue containing a diazirine moiety that was prepared in six steps and incorporated into an a-factor-derived peptide produced via solid-phase synthesis. In addition to the diazirine moiety, fluorescein and biotin groups were also incorporated into the peptide to aid in the detection and enrichment of photo-cross-linked products. This multifuctional diazirine-containing peptide was a substrate for Ste14p, the yeast homologue of the potential anticancer target Icmt, with Km (6.6 μM) and Vmax (947 pmol min–1 mg–1) values comparable or better than a-factor peptides functionalized with benzophenone-based isoprenoids. Photo-cross-linking experiments demonstrated that the diazirine probe photo-cross-linked to Ste14p with observably higher efficiency than benzophenone-containing a-factor peptides.

Isoprenylcysteine carboxyl methyltransferases (Icmts) are a class of integral membrane protein methyltransferases localized to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane in eukaryotes. The Icmts from human (hIcmt) and S. cerevisae (Ste14p) catalyze the α-carboxyl methyl esterification step in the post-translational processing of CaaX proteins, including the yeast a-factor mating pheromones and both human and yeast Ras proteins. Herein, we evaluated synthetic analogs of two well-characterized Icmt substrates, N-acetyl-S-farnesyl-L-cysteine (AFC) and the yeast a-factor peptide mating pheromone, that contain photoactive benzophenone moieties in either the lipid or peptide portion of the molecule. The AFC based-compounds were substrates for both hIcmt and Ste14p, whereas the a-factor analogs were only substrates for Ste14p. However, the a-factor analogs were found to be micromolar inhibitors of hIcmt. Together, these data suggest that the Icmt substrate binding site is dependent upon features in both the isoprenyl moiety and upstream amino acid composition and that hIcmt and Ste14p have overlapping, yet distinct, substrate specificities. Photocrosslinking and neutravidin-agarose capture experiments with these analogs revealed that both hIcmt and Ste14p were specifically photolabeled to varying degrees with all of the compounds tested. These data suggest that these analogs will be useful for the future identification of the Icmt substrate binding sites.

Farnesyl diphosphate (FPP) is an important metabolic intermediate in the biosynthesis of a variety of molecules including sesquiterpenes and the side chains of a number of cofactors. FPP is also the source of isoprenoid side chains found attached to proteins. Enzymes that employ FPP as a substrate are of interest because they are involved in the semisynthesis of drugs as well as targets for drug design. Photoactive analogs of FPP have been useful for identifying enzymes that use this molecule as a substrate. A variety of photocrosslinking groups have been employed to prepare FPP analogs for use in such experiments including aryl azides, diazotrifluoropropionates and benzophenones. In this review, the design of these probes is described along with an examination of how they have been used in crosslinking experiments.

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