Soluble prefusion-closed HIV-envelope trimers with glycan-covered bases

oleh: Adam S. Olia, Cheng Cheng, Tongqing Zhou, Andrea Biju, Darcy R. Harris, Anita Changela, Hongying Duan, Vera B. Ivleva, Wing-Pui Kong, Li Ou, Reda Rawi, Yaroslav Tsybovsky, David J. Van Wazer, Angela R. Corrigan, Christopher A. Gonelli, Myungjin Lee, Krisha McKee, Sandeep Narpala, Sijy O’Dell, Danealle K. Parchment, Erik-Stephane D. Stancofski, Tyler Stephens, Ivy Tan, I-Ting Teng, Shuishu Wang, Qing Wei, Yongping Yang, Zhengrong Yang, Baoshan Zhang, Jan Novak, Matthew B. Renfrow, Nicole A. Doria-Rose, Richard A. Koup, Adrian B. McDermott, Jason G. Gall, Q. Paula Lei, John R. Mascola, Peter D. Kwong

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Elsevier 2023-08-01

Deskripsi

Summary: Soluble HIV-1-envelope (Env) trimers elicit immune responses that target their solvent-exposed protein bases, the result of removing these trimers from their native membrane-bound context. To assess whether glycosylation could limit these base responses, we introduced sequons encoding potential N-linked glycosylation sites (PNGSs) into base-proximal regions. Expression and antigenic analyses indicated trimers bearing six-introduced PNGSs to have reduced base recognition. Cryo-EM analysis revealed trimers with introduced PNGSs to be prone to disassembly and introduced PNGS to be disordered. Protein-base and glycan-base trimers induced reciprocally symmetric ELISA responses, in which only a small fraction of the antibody response to glycan-base trimers recognized protein-base trimers and vice versa. EM polyclonal epitope mapping revealed glycan-base trimers –even those that were stable biochemically– to elicit antibodies that recognized disassembled trimers. Introduced glycans can thus mask the protein base but their introduction may yield neo-epitopes that dominate the immune response.