Advantages of a Synthetic Peptide Immunogen Over a Protein Immunogen in the Development of an Anti‐Pilus Vaccine for Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

The type IV pilus is an important adhesin in the establishment of infection by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We have previously reported on a synthetic peptide vaccine targeting the receptor-binding domain of the main structural subunit of the pilus, PilA. The receptor-binding domain is a 14-residue disulfide loop at the C-terminal end of the pilin protein. The objective of this study was to compare the immunogenicity of a peptide-conjugate to a protein subunit immunogen to determine which was superior for use in an anti-pilus vaccine. BALB/c mice were immunized with the native PAK strain pilin protein and a synthetic peptide of the receptor-binding domain conjugated to keyhole limpet haemocyanin. A novel pilin protein with a scrambled receptor-binding domain was used to characterize receptor-binding domain-specific antibodies. The titres against the native pilin of the animals immunized with the synthetic peptide-conjugate were higher than the titres of animals immunized with the pilin protein. In addition, the affinities of anti-peptide sera for the intact pilin receptor-binding domain were significantly higher than affinities of anti-pilin protein sera. These results have significant implications for vaccine design and show that there are significant advantages in using a synthetic peptide-conjugate over a subunit pilin protein for an anti-pilus vaccine.

Tat peptide‐calmodulin binding studies and bioinformatics of HIV‐1 protein–calmodulin interactions

“…However, peptides are usually far less immunogenic than the proteins from which they are derived 93. Conformational restriction of peptides can lead to higher immunogenicity94, 95 and the present results suggests that residues 34–56 of Tat may be a suitable vaccine target because of the helical propensity of that region of the protein.…”

Computers and viral diseases. Preliminary bioinformatics studies on the design of a synthetic vaccine and a preventative peptidomimetic antagonist against the SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV, COVID-19) coronavirus

“…Refs. [13,[49][50][51][52]), experimental studies of binding and cleavage studies specifically on SARS-CoV and other relevant systems (e.g. Refs.…”

Adaptive Immunity against Leishmania Nucleoside Hydrolase Maps Its C-Terminal Domain as the Target of the CD4+ T Cell–Driven Protective Response

“…Synthetic vaccines based on short peptides which represent immunogenic epitopes are able to impair and even exceeded the protective potential of the native cognate whole protein [29] and they can also induce universal T cell responses, which are related to many human HLA-DR allotypes and to diverse mice genetic backgrounds [30], [31].…”