Project description:HLA-E molecules can present self and pathogen-derived peptides to both NK-cells and T-cells. T-cells that recognize HLA-E peptides via their T-cell receptor (TCR) are termed donor-unrestricted T-cells due to restricted allelic variation of HLA-E. The composition and repertoire of HLA-E TCRs is not known so far. We performed TCR sequencing on CD8+ T-cells from 21 individuals recognizing HLA-E tetramers (TM) folded with 2 Mtb HLA-E restricted peptides. We sorted HLA-E Mtb TM+ and TMCD8+ T-cells directly ex vivo and performed bulk RNA-sequencing and single cell TCR sequencing. The identified TCR repertoire was diverse and showed no conservation between and within individuals. TCRs selected from our single cell TCR sequencing data could be activated upon HLA-E/peptide stimulation, although not robust, reflecting potentially weak interactions between HLA-E peptide complexes and TCRs. Thus, HLA-E Mtb specific T-cells have a highly diverse TCR repertoire.
Project description:A peptide library was displayed on Db MHC class I allele expressed on yeast. TCRs of interest were used to select and enrich for cognate peptide-MHC.
Project description:A peptide library was displayed on Ab MHC class II allele expressed on yeast. TCRs of interest were used to select and enrich for cognate peptide-MHC.
Project description:We introduced single-chain trimer (SCT) technologies into a high throughput platform for pMHC library generation that can be used for screening antigen specific CD8+ T cells. We compared the diversity of T cell receptor repertoire captured by SCT and folded peptide-MHC multimer presenting HLA-A02:01 restricted CMV peptide. We then constructed SCT libraries designed to capture SARS-CoV-2 spike specific CD8+ T cells from COVID-19 participants and healthy donors. TCR sequencing with antigen specificity was analyzed. The immunogenicity of these epitopes was validated by functional assays of T cells with cloned TCRs captured using SCT libraries.
Project description:Display technologies, e.g., phage, ribosome, mRNA, bacterial, and yeast-display, combine high content peptide libraries with appropriate screening strategies to identify functional peptide sequences. Construction of large peptide library and display-screen system in intact mammalian cells will facilitate the development of peptide therapeutics targeting transmembrane proteins. Our previous work established linear-double-stranded DNAs (ldsDNAs) as innovative biological parts to implement AND gate genetic circuits in mammalian cell line. In the current study, we employ ldsDNA with terminal NNK degenerate codons as AND gate input to build highly diverse peptide library in mammalian cells. Only PCR reaction and cell transfection experiments are needed to construct the library. High-throughput sequencing (HTS) results reveal that our new strategy could generate peptide library with both amino acid sequence and peptide length diversities. Our work establishes ldsDNA as biological parts for building highly diverse peptide library in mammalian cells, which shows great application potential in developing therapeutic peptides targeting transmembrane proteins.
Project description:Background Clinical success of T cell receptor (TCR) gene therapy has previously been demonstrated for NY-ESO-1 TCR gene therapy. To increase numbers of cancer patients that can be treated with TCR gene therapy we aimed to identify a novel set of high-affinity cancer specific TCRs targeting different cancer testis (CT) antigens in prevalent HLA class I alleles. Methods In this study, we selected based on publicly available gene expression databases the most promising CT genes to target. From these selected genes we identified by HLA peptidomics the naturally processed and presented HLA class I peptides. With these peptide-HLA tetramers were generated, and by single cell sorting CT specific CD8+ T cells were selected, and expanded from the allo-HLA repertoire of healthy donors. By several functional assays high avidity CT-specific T cell clones with safe recognition pattern were selected. To evaluate the potential for clinical application in TCR gene therapy, TCRs were sequenced and transferred into peripheral blood derived CD8+ T cells. Results In total we identified, 7 novel CT-specific TCRs that effectively target MAGE-A1, MAGE-A3, MAGE-A6 and MAGE-A9 in the context of human leukocyte antigen(HLA) -A1, -A2, -A3, -B7, -B35 and -C7. TCR gene transfer into CD8⁺ T cells resulted in efficient cytokine production and cytotoxicity of variety of different tumor types without detectable cross-reactivity. In addition, major in vivo antitumor effects of MAGE-A1 specific TCR engineered CD8⁺ T cells was observed in an orthotopic xenograft model for established multiple myeloma, in which bone marrow located tumor cells were completely eradicated after T cell injection. Conclusion The identification of 7 novel CT-specific TCRs, reactive against CT antigens presented in a variety of different HLA class I alleles, allows selection of therapeutic TCRs for an increased number of cancer patients, and will improve development of personalized TCR gene therapy.