Abstract

The recombinant heat shock protein (18 kDa-hsp) from Mycobacterium leprae was studied as a T-epitope model for vaccine development. We present a structural analysis of the stability of recombinant 18 kDa-hsp during different processing steps. Circular dichroism and ELISA were used to monitor protein structure after thermal stress, lyophilization and chemical modification. We observed that the 18 kDa-hsp is extremely resistant to a wide range of temperatures (60% of activity is retained at 80 degrees C for 20 min). N-Acylation increased its ordered structure by 4% and decreased its beta-T1 structure by 2%. ELISA demonstrated that the native conformation of the 18 kDa-hsp was preserved after hydrophobic modification by acylation. The recombinant 18 kDa-hsp resists to a wide range of temperatures and chemical modifications without loss of its main characteristic, which is to be a source of T epitopes. This resistance is probably directly related to its lack of organization at the level of tertiary and secondary structures.

Highlights

  • Modern vaccinology combines recombinant DNA technology and protein chemistry to obtain safe subunit vaccines

  • It is known that the heat shock proteins are involved in immunity [3] and in T cell stimulation [4]

  • We developed the large-scale production of 18 kDa-hsp at low cost in order to be able to introduce this T cell stimulation into our vaccines [7,8]

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Summary

Introduction

Modern vaccinology combines recombinant DNA technology and protein chemistry to obtain safe subunit vaccines. We developed the large-scale production of 18 kDa-hsp at low cost in order to be able to introduce this T cell stimulation into our vaccines [7,8]. Our main goal was to co-encapsulate the 18 kDa-hsp together with poor antigens within safe and pluripotent supports, such as liposomes [9,10] or biodegradable microspheres [11]. The liposomes containing the 18 kDa-hsp are prepared in a stable condition by lyophilization [10].

Results
Conclusion

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