Yan Deng,Hao Cheng,Ji Zhu,Yue Jiang,Hongwu Sun,Guocheng Li,Jing Wei,Ruoyi Xue,Rang Feng,Jingwen Cao,Wenkang Yu,Yalan Wang,Mingqi Xu,Quanming Zou,Haibo Li
Parenteral subunit vaccines typically elicit systemic humoral immune responses but often struggle to induce mucosal immunity. Herein, we developed a promising adjuvant system, TB/P2C-NE, a tamibarotene-loaded nanoemulsion incorporating the TLR2/6 agonist Pam2CSK4. Upon intramuscular vaccination, TB/P2C-NE promoted antigen-specific mucosal immune responses in the gastrointestinal tract, accompanied by systemic humoral and cellular response. Mechanistically, tamibarotene upregulated the intestinal homing molecule CCR9 on lymphocytes through dendritic cell modulation, while Pam2CSK4 increased IL-6 secretion at the injection sites, further amplifying CCR9 expression and lymphocyte activation and leading to enhanced lymphocyte homing to the intestinal mucosa and a subsequent boost in mucosal immunity. Notably, TB/P2C-NE induced long-term gastrointestinal mucosal responses, maintaining elevated sIgA levels for up to three months post-immunization, and also induced gastrointestinal mucosal immunity in combination with a polysaccharide conjugate antigen. Immunization with recombinant intimin using TB/P2C-NE as the adjuvant resulted in a robust protective effect against the EHEC O157:H7 challenge. In summary, TB/P2C-NE offers an adjuvant strategy potentially accelerating the development of vaccines targeting gastrointestinal infections.
mRNA vaccines have emerged rapidly in recent years as a prophylactic and therapeutic agent against various diseases including cancer and infectious diseases. Improvements of mRNA vaccines have been underway, among which boosting of efficacy is of great importance. Pam2Cys, a simple synthetic metabolizable lipoamino acid that signals through Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2/6 pathway, eliciting both humoral and cellular adaptive immune responses, is an interesting candidate adjuvant. To investigate the enhancement of the efficacies of mRNA vaccines by Pam2Cys, the adjuvant was incorporated into mRNA-lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to achieve co-delivery with mRNA. Immunization with the resulting mRNA-LNPs (Pam2Cys) shaped up the immune milieu in the draining lymph nodes (dLNs) through the induction of IL-12 and IL-17, among other cytokines. Antigen presentation was carried out mainly by migratory and dLN-resident conventional type 2 DCs (cDC2s) and significantly more potent antitumor responses were triggered in both prophylactic and therapeutic tumor models in a CD4 + and CD8 + T cell-dependent fashion. Accompanying memory antitumor immunity was also established. Moreover, the vaccine also stimulated much more robust humoral and cellular immunity in a surrogate COVID-19 prophylactic model. Last but not the least, the new vaccines exhibited good preliminary safety profiles in murine models. These facts warrant future development of Pam2Cys-incorporated mRNA vaccines or relevant mRNA therapeutics for clinical application.