Ming-Yan Wang,Meng-Xu Yi,Xing-Yu Mo,Shan-Jie Wei,Yu Qiao,Zheng Zhang,Zhao-Liang Su,Hong-Yan Lu
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a severe lung disease in preterm infants, the abnormal proliferate and differentiate ability of type II epithelial cells (AEC II) is the key to the pathological basis of BPD. Mechanisms regarding abnormal AEC II in BPD remain unclear. The present work investigated the role and mechanisms of invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells in lung disorder in BPD using public datasets, clinical samples, a hyperoxia-induced BPD mouse model and AEC II-iNKT cells transwell co-culture system. Firstly, we found that the NKT cells development factor IL-15 increased over time in patients with BPD in public databases, and clinically collected peripheral blood NKT cells in patients with BPD were increased. Subsequently, the percentage of iNKT cells increased in hyperoxia group compared with normoxia group, with the highest at P7, accompanied by increased activation with abnormal lung development. The administration of anti-CD1d neutralizing antibody to inhibit iNKT cells could alleviate the abnormal lung development of hyperoxia group mice, while α-GalCer administration could aggravate lung injury in hyperoxia group mice, and adoptive transfer of iNKT cells could aggravate the abnormal lung development in hyperoxia group mice. In addition, to further verify the role of iNKT cells on AEC II, AEC II-iNKT cells co-culture system was established. The presence of iNKT cells could aggravate the abnormal expression of SP-C and T1α under hyperoxia. Meanwhile, RNA-seq analysis showed that ferroptosis-related genes were highly expressed in AEC II co-cultured with iNKT cells under hyperoxia. We further validated the effect of the presence of iNKT cells under hyperoxia environment on AEC II ferroptosis levels, suggested that iNKT cells promote AEC II ferroptosis under hyperoxia, accompanied by decreased expression of SP-C and T1α. Our study found that the recruitment of iNKT cells in the lung may be an important cause of alveolarization disorder in BPD.
Covalently linking an adjuvant to an antigenic protein enhances its immunogenicity by ensuring a synergistic delivery to the immune system, fostering a more robust and targeted immune response. Most adjuvant-protein conjugate vaccines incorporate only one adjuvant due to the difficulties in its synthesis. However, there is a growing interest in developing vaccines with multiple adjuvants designed to elicit a more robust and targeted immune response by engaging different aspects of the immune system for complex diseases where traditional vaccines fall short. Here, we pioneer the synthesis of a dual-adjuvants protein conjugate Vaccine 1 by assembling a toll-like receptor 7/8 (TLR7/8) agonist, an invariant natural killer T cell (iNKT) agonist with a clickable bicyclononyne (BCN). The BCN group can bio-orthogonally react with azide-modified severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 receptor-binding domain (SARS-CoV-2 RBD) trimer antigen to give the three-component Vaccine 1 . Notably, with a mere 3 μg antigen, it elicited a balanced subclass of IgG titers and 20-fold more IgG2a than control vaccines, highlighting its potential for enhancing antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity. This strategy provides a practicable way to synthesize covalently linked dual immunostimulants. It expands the fully synthetic self-adjuvant protein vaccine that uses a single adjuvant to include two different types of adjuvants.