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Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, August 2006, p. 953-957, Vol. 13, No. 8
1071-412X/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/CVI.00037-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100071, China
Received 23 January 2006/ Returned for modification 16 March 2006/ Accepted 24 April 2006
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2a and 4f families, respectively. A neutralizing test on purified M1A demonstrated that 0.5 mg/ml of M1A completely inhibited SARS-CoV activity, with an absence of cytopathic effect for 7 days. Real-time fluorescence reverse transcription-PCR also proved the neutralizing capacity of M1A. These data showed that the number of virus copies was significantly reduced in the M1A-treated group, suggesting an important role for M1A in passive immunoprophylaxis against the SARS virus. |
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Enrichment of antigen-binding clones by panning. Microtiter wells were coated overnight at 4°C with 50 µl of purified SARS-CoV (Beijing 01 strain) lysate antigen (30 µg/ml), and after a blocking step with 3% bovine serum albumin (BSA)-phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), 50 µl Fab phages (1014 CFU/ml) was added to each well, followed by incubation at 37°C for 2 h. The unbound clones were washed out with a phosphate-buffered saline solution containing 0.02% Tween 20; the wells were washed once at the first round of panning, 5 times at the second round, and 10 and 20 times at the third and fourth rounds, respectively. Bound phages were eluted with 0.1 M triethylamine (pH 2.3) and then immediately neutralized with 2 M Tris base. The eluted phages were amplified by infection of Escherichia coli XL1-Blue cultures, followed by superinfection with helper phage VCS M13 (1012 PFU). For the third and fourth rounds of biopanning, the phage library was biopanned by recombinant spike protein of SARS-CoV, which was expressed in 293T cells and stored at 70°C until use (11). After the last round of panning, phagemid DNA was extracted from the overnight culture, and the vector was modified by excision of the coat protein III-encoding gene fragment of the phage. Propagation and induction of Fab production were performed essentially as previously described (2, 3, 13, 17), and the bacterial supernatants were selected by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) against S protein for the presence of S-specific Fabs.
ELISA. Screening of specific Fab clones against S protein was carried out by a double antibody sandwich ELISA. The protocol was as follows. A rabbit anti-S serum was diluted in 50 mM sodium carbonate buffer (pH 9.6) and applied to microtiter plates, which were left overnight at 4°C. At the same time, plates were coated with BSA and Vero E6 cell lysates as negative antigen controls. Coated plates were blocked with 3% BSA in PBS. A SARS-CoV lysate antigen was added to capture S protein. The plates were then incubated with 50 µl of a crude Fab preparation in PBS at 37°C for 2 h. For the titration study of the binding activity of purified M1A (the neutralizing Fab clone) to S protein, the plates were coated with recombinant S protein expressed in 293T cells, and after blocking with 3% BSA-PBS, twofold serial dilutions of purified Fab ranging from 0.025 mg/ml to 0.2 mg/ml were added. The binding activity of Fabs was detected by a horseradish peroxidase-labeled goat anti-human Fab antibody. Absorbance was measured as the optical density at 450 nm (5, 7).
Virus neutralization capacity assay. The ability of Fabs to inhibit SARS virus infectivity was assayed by a microneutralization test (MNT). Crude Fabs or twofold dilutions (1 mg/ml to 0.0625 mg/ml) of the purified neutralizing clone M1A were mixed with an equal volume of SARS-CoV at 2,000 PFU/ml. The mixture was incubated for 1 h at 37°C and subsequently inoculated (100 µl) into 96-well tissue culture plates containing confluent Vero E6 cell monolayers. After adsorption for 1 h at 37°C, wells were first overlaid with 100 µl Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium supplemented with 2% fetal calf serum and 20 mM HEPES and then incubated at 37°C under a humidified 5% CO2 atmosphere. After 2 days of incubation, an inverted microscope was used to examine cells for the appearance of cytopathic effect (CPE) for 5 more days. The neutralization effect was determined by inhibition of CPE in wells containing Fab molecules, and the titer end point of M1A was taken as the highest dilution that completely neutralized the infective dose of virus. As a negative control, the supernatant of pComb3 vector culture was included, and the neutralization assay was repeated at least twice, with reproducible results (19).
Sequence analysis. The nucleotide sequences of the VL and VH regions were determined by the T7 primer (5'-GTAATACGACTCACTATAGGG-3') and the T3 primer (5'-AATTAACCCTCACTAAAG-3') on the pComb3 sequence, respectively (16).
Expression and purification of M1A protein. The VH and VL gene fragments of M1A were cloned into the PET32a vector and expressed in E. coli BL21(DE3). Protein products of the Fab were purified from both the pellet and the supernatant of the culture by affinity chromatography. The affinity column was generated by linking goat anti-human immunoglobulin G (IgG) to CNBr-activated Sepharose 4 according to the manufacturer's instructions (Pharmacia Biotech). Then crude Fab preparations were diluted in PBS and applied to the column. Bound Fab molecules were eluted with 0.1 M HCl-glycine (pH 2.2) and neutralized immediately with 2 M Tris base. Appropriate Fab-containing fractions were pooled and dialyzed overnight. The resulting Fab preparations were analyzed for Fab concentration, antigen reactivity, and neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV (6).
Testing of neutralizing activity by real-time RT-PCR. To draw the standard curve and examine the feasibility of a real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assay for testing the neutralizing capacity of M1A, known amounts of SARS-CoV RNA (0.1, 1, 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 PFU) were extracted and subjected to real-time RT-PCR first. Then total RNAs of a virus control group and a test group with M1A (0.5 mg/ml) were isolated from aliquots of culture supernatants, from the first day to the sixth day after virus infection. The real-time RT-PCR assay was performed by following the operation instructions for the novel coronavirus PCR fluorescence diagnostic kit (Piji Biological Co.), and amplification conditions were 42°C for 30 min and 95°C for 3 min, followed by 5 cycles of 95°C for 10 s, 55°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 60 s, and then 40 cycles of 95°C for 5 s and 60°C for 30 s. An ABI 7900 sequence detector was used to analyze the fluorescence emitted during amplification. The relationship between the cycle threshold (CT) and the known number of virus copies used per reaction was drawn by a standard curve. From the standard curve, the virus copies of control groups and test groups can be calculated by the software (21).
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2. Among the 50 clones analyzed, 12 clones appeared to exhibit binding activities specific for S protein. Then the neutralizing capacities of these 12 Fab clones were tested by MNT and were determined by evaluating the percentage of cells showing CPE compared with that in the virus control wells. When the cells were observed by inverted microscope on day 2 of incubation, a specific CPE consisting of rounding and sloughing of infected cells off the monolayer was seen in virus control wells, occurring on about 75% of the cells. By day 3, the changes were very clear-cut; the cell sheet had become almost completely disrupted and consisted of an open meshwork of distorted cells, and CPE occurred on 100% of cells. But in the test group, in the wells containing Fab MIA and virus, the percentage of CPE was much lower than that in the virus control group: 20% of cells showed CPE on day 2, and 75% showed CPE on day 3 (Table 1). This finding indicated that crude M1A could partially neutralize the activity of SARS-CoV by reducing CPE 50% after 2 days of infection with 100 PFU SARS-CoV. |
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TABLE 1. Neutralizing test of M1A
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2a and 4f families, respectively. The amino acid sequence of the variable region deduced from the DNA sequence is shown in Table 2. |
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TABLE 2. Amino acid sequences of the variable regions of M1A Fab
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FIG. 1. (A) Nonreducing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of fractions eluted from an affinity chromatography column. (B) Western blot of a duplicate gel stained with an anti-human Fab antibody.
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FIG. 2. Reactivity of M1A to S protein determined by ELISA. s + M1A, plates were coated with recombinant S protein as an antigen to test the reactivity of M1A. BSA + M1A or E6 + M1A, plates were coated with BSA (1 mg/ml) or Vero E6 cell lysates, respectively, as a negative antigen control to test the cross-reactivity of M1A. OD450, optical density at 450 nm.
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FIG. 3. Analysis of the neutralizing capacity of purified M1A by MNT. (A) Vero E6 cell control; (B) cells treated with 100 PFU of SARS-CoV; (C) cells treated with 100 PFU of SARS-CoV and 0.5 mg/ml M1A Fab. a, b, and c, CPE of cells on the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th days of virus infection, respectively.
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TABLE 3. Analysis of neutralizing capacity of purified M1A toward SARS-CoV
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FIG. 4. Relationship of known input virus copies to the CT in the real-time RT-PCR assay. r, correlation coefficient.
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TABLE 4. Real-time RT-PCR assay-based comparison of virus copy number between virus-treated group and M1A test groupa
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The phage display technique has become a powerful tool for generation of human antibodies recently. It is easy to manipulate and also has the advantage of a high selection capacity. Our studies demonstrate that it is a feasible and efficient way to obtain both rare antibodies and completely humanized antibodies directly (1, 2, 18).
In this study, strain Beijing 01 was used as the antigen for panning, since it is the most prevalent serotype in China. It has been reported that the neutralizing epitope of SARS-CoV is located mainly on the S protein; however, the amount of S proteins on viruses is very small compared with the whole virus structure protein (10, 12, 14, 15, 20, 22, 23, 24), so it is more difficult to obtain MAbs with neutralizing capacity than nonneutralizing MAbs. This problem requires some modifications of the panning and screening processes. In the present study, the lymphocyte for construction of an anti-SARS-CoV Fab library was derived from convalescent SARS patients, in whom protective titers of IgG to SARS-CoV were higher than 1:264 and 1:64 as detected by ELISA and MNT, respectively. Also, we used the highly purified virion for the first two rounds of panning and the recombinant spike protein for the last two rounds in order to increase the possibility of selecting out neutralizing Fab clones from the Fab library.
Our ELISA data confirmed that the purified M1A bound specifically to S protein. The neutralizing test demonstrated that 0.25 mg/ml of M1A could postpone the occurrence of CPE for 2 days upon challenge with 100 PFU of SARS-CoV. The titration end point of M1A was 0.5 mg/ml, which completely neutralized the activity of SARS-CoV. Although the 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of M1A could not be precisely determined by the MNT, it could be estimated from the MNT result that the IC50 of M1A ranged from 0.25 mg/ml to 0.5 mg/ml.
Real-time fluorescence RT-PCR was utilized to test the difference in the number of SARS-CoV copies between the group treated with 0.5 mg/ml M1A and the virus control group. This study showed that the number of virus copies for the M1A-treated group was 20 times lower than that for the control group after virus infection for 1 to 5 days. M1A displayed significant neutralizing capacity against SARS-CoV in vitro, indicating the possibility of generating a therapeutic antibody for SARS.
Previous studies have demonstrated that Fab molecules could not have a protective capacity in vivo in the absence of the Fc region. The affinity constant of whole-molecule IgG with its antigen can improve 100 times compared with that of Fab or scFv molecule forms (3, 4). Therefore, structural modifications of M1A may increase its binding affinity and neutralizing capacity. This study showed that M1A will be useful for studies on the conformational structures and immunogenicity of S protein and will furthermore be valuable for passive immunoprophylaxis against SARS-CoV.
This work was supported by national "863" grant 2003AA208204 from the National Science and Technology section.
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