Abstract
Subunit vaccine is the focus of research in developing new vaccines against infectious disease. Due to the low immunogenicity of recombinant protein, adjuvant are required for the activation of humoral and cellular immunity against an protein antigen. In this study, we reported the identification of a novel pathway that can activate humoral immunity against a recombinant protein without inducing inflammatory reponses. By fusing an amphipathic helical peptide to GFP increases the immunogenicity of GFP up to 1000 folds. This enhancement was correlated to the ability of amphipathic helical peptide in binding to cell membrane and causing lysosomal membrane permeabilization. We showed evidences that the amphipathic helical peptide may induces the delivery of antigen across lysosomal membrane into cytosol. Amphipathic helical peptide fusing provided a new pathway for stimulating immune responses against recombinant proteins.
Competing Interest Statement
Jyun-Hong Lyu and May wang were the employees of Vaxsia Bioemdical Inc. Ming-Chung Kan is the founder of Vaxsia Biomedical Inc. Vaxsia Biomedical Inc. owns the intellectual propery derived from this study. Gunn-Guang Liou has no conflict of interest.
