Full synthesis and bioactivity evaluation of Tn-RC-529 derivative conjugates as self-adjuvanting cancer vaccines

A facile and efficient strategy was established for the construction of RC-529 and its derivatives.Four conjugates of RC-529 derivatives with Tn antigen were synthesized and all elicited strong and T celldependent immune responses in mice without requiring external adjuvants.In addition,all antisera induced by these conjugates could specifically recognize,bind to and kill Tn-overexpressing cancer cells.Thus,RC-529 shows promise as a useful platform for the development of new vaccine carriers with self-adjuvanting properties for the treatment of cancer.Moreover,preliminary structure-activity relationship analysis provides convincing support for further optimization of,and additional investigation into RC-529.

Fully synthetic Tn-based three-component cancer vaccine using covalently linked TLR4 ligand MPLA and iNKT cell agonist KRN-7000 as built-in adjuvant effectively protects mice from tumor development

We present a new strategy for self-adjuvanting vaccine development that has different types of covalently-linked immunostimulants as the carrier molecule.Using Tn antigen as the model,a three-component vaccine(MPLA-Tn-KRN7000)containing the TLR4 ligand MPLA and the iNKT cell agonist KRN7000 was designed and synthesized.This expands fully synthetic self-adjuvanting vaccine studies that use a single carrier to one with two different types of carriers.The corresponding two-component conjugate vaccines Tn-MPLA,Tn-KRN7000 and Tn-CRM197 were also synthesized,as controls.The immunological evaluation found that MPLA-Tn-KRN7000 elicits robust Tn-specific and T cell-dependent immunity.The antibodies specifically recognized,bound to and exhibited complement-dependent cytotoxicity against Tn-positive cancer cells.In addition,MPLA-Tn-KRN7000 increased the survival rate and survival time of tumor-challenged mice,and surviving mice reject further tumor attacks without any additional treatment.Compared to the glycoprotein vaccine Tn-CRM197,the two-component conjugate vaccines,Tn-MPLA and Tn-KRN7000,and the physical mixture of Tn-MPLA and Tn-KRN7000,MPLA-Tn-KRN7000 showed the most effect at combating tumor cells both in vitro and in vivo.The comparison of immunological studies in wild-type and TLR4 knockout mice,along with the test of binding affinity to CD1d protein suggests that the covalently linked MPLA-KRN7000 immunostimulant induces a synergistic activation of TLR4 and iNKT cell that improves the immunogenicity of Tn.This work demonstrates that MPLA-Tn-KRN7000 has the potential to be a vaccine candidate and provides a new direction for fully synthetic vaccine design.

MUTYH is a potential prognostic biomarker and correlates with immune infiltrates in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background:Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide.The development of biomarkers for early detection and monitoring of HCC has not shown significant prog-ress.Meanwhile,the second adenomatous polyposis-related gene,MUTYH,which encodes a DNA gly-cosylase,has been observed in its contribution to oxidative DNA damage repair.Abnormal expression of MUTYH can reduce cell survival rate.Therefore,this study investigated the usefulness of MUTYH in diagnosing and prognosis HCC.Materials and methods:Using The Cancer Genome Atlas(TCGA)data,we analyzed the prognostic value of MUTYH in HCC.We used logistic regression,Wilcoxon signed-rank test,and KruskaleWallis test to examine MUTYH expression concerning clinical-pathologic characteristics.Univariate and multivariate Cox regression methods and Kaplan-Meier analysis were applied to determine the related prognostic factors of HCC.The enrichment analysis(GSEA)was used to determine the critical pathways associated with MUTYH.The single-sample gene set enrichment analysis(ssGSEA)was conducted to examine the correlation between MUTYH expression and cancer immune infiltration.Results:The higher expression of MUTYH in HCC patients was associated with a poorer overall survival rate and a shorter disease-specific survival rate.The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)analysis showed that all differentially expressed genes(DEGs)between the high and low expression levels of MUTYH significantly enriched in the trace ligand-receptor interaction,cell cycle,oocyte meiosis,gap junction,and DNA replication.Group analysis revealed the signals of their open access.The neuron system,M phase,DNA repair,Rho GTPase effector,and cell cycle checkpoints were significantly enriched.ssGSEA showed a positive correlation between MUTYH expression and the infiltration levels of Th2 cells,NK cells,and T helper cells.Moreover,a negative correlation was found between MUTYH expression and the infiltration levels of dendritic cells(DCs)and cytotoxic cells.Conclusions:MUTYH expression levels were positively correlated with immune checkpoint gene expression levels in HCC tissues.The expression level of MUTYH was related to the prognosis of HCC and the immune infiltration of HCC.