Disruption of Nucleotide Homeostasis by the Antiproliferative Drug 5-Aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-β-d-ribofuranoside Monophosphate (AICAR)

International audienceBackground: AICAR is a potent anti-proliferative compound, but the basis of its cytotoxicity is poorly understood. Results: AICAR affects NTP homeostasis in a carbon source-dependent way, in both yeast and human cells. Conclusion: AICAR balance with nucleotides triphosphate is critical for its in vivo effects. Significance: AICAR is significantly more cytotoxic on glucose and thus potentially targets cells prone to Warburg effect

Site-specific conjugation for fully controlled glycoconjugate vaccine preparation

Glycoconjugate vaccines are formed by covalently link a carbohydrate antigen to a carrier protein whose role is to achieve a long lasting immune response directed against the carbohydrate antigen. The nature of the sugar antigen, its length, its ratio per carrier protein and the conjugation chemistry impact on both structure and the immune response of a glycoconjugate vaccine. In addition it has long been assumed that the sites at which the carbohydrate antigen is attached can also have an impact. These important issue can now be addressed owing to the development of novel chemoselective ligation reactions as well as techniques such as site-selective mutagenesis, glycoengineering, or extension of the genetic code. The preparation and characterization of homogeneous bivalent pneumococcal vaccines is reported. The preparation and characterization of homogeneous bivalent pneumococcal vaccines is reported. A synthetic tetrasaccharide representative of the serotype 14 capsular polysaccharide of Streptococcus pneumoniae has been linked using the thiol/maleimide coupling chemistry to four different Pneumococcal surface adhesin A (PsaA) mutants, each harboring a single cysteine mutation at a defined position. Humoral response of these 1 to 1 carbohydrate antigen/PsaA conjugates have been assessed in mice. Our results showed that the carbohydrate antigen-PsaA connectivity impacts the anti-carrier response and raise questions about the design of glycoconjugate vaccine whereby the protein plays the dual role of immunogen and carrier.S

Development of synthetic biology techniques applied to generate defined glycoconjugate vaccines and to broaden the recognition properties of proteins

Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons mis en place une technologie d'incorporation d'acides aminés non naturels de manière site-spécifique au sein du laboratoire et l’avons appliqué à deux problématiques. Les vaccins glycoconjugués actuels ne couvrent que 13 des 97 sérotypes de Streptococcus pneumoniae. L'utilisation d'une protéine porteuse immunogène permet d'élargir la couverture sérotypique en couplant l'utilisation d'antigènes polysaccharidiques avec des antigènes protéiques. Cependant, les méthodes de conjugaison actuelles ne permettent pas l'étude de l'association optimale entre ces deux antigènes. Dans une première partie, nous avons généré différents vaccins glycoconjugués homogènes en incorporant la Propargyl-Lysine dans la protéine porteuse du pneumoncoque (mPsaA) afin de maîtriser la position ainsi que le nombre des haptens. Les lectines reconnaissent leur ligand saccharidique avec une très bonne spécificité mais avec une affinité généralement faible. Dans une seconde partie de la thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés à l'incorporation d'acides aminés non naturels permettant de former des liaisons covalentes avec les sucres et ainsi augmenter les forces d’interaction entre des lectines et leurs ligands. Nous avons tenté d'incorporer un premier acide aminé non naturel original sans succès. Mais deux autres ont pu être incorporés, dont l'un d'eux au sein de 2 cibles protéiques, en quantité suffisante pour réaliser des tests d'affinité. Cette thèse a donc permis la mise en place d’un nouvel axe technologique au sein du laboratoire et d’en explorer des applications potentielles.In this thesis, we set up the technology of non natural amino acids site-specific incorporation in the laboratory and we applied it to two projects. Current glycoconjugate vaccines cover 13 out of 97 serotypes from Streptococcus pneumoniae. Using an immunogenic carrier protein could allow to boarden this efficiency by coupling carbohydrate antigens with protein antigens. However, currently used conjugation methods do not allow to study the optimal association between these two antigens. In a first part of the thesis, we generated different homogenous glycoconjugate vaccines using Propargyl-Lysine incorporation into a pneumococcal carrier protein (mPsaA) to master hapten positions on the protein as well as their number. Lectins recognize their carbohydrate ligand with a high specificity but usually with a low affinity. In a second part of the thesis, we focused on the incorporation of unnatural amino acids which can form covalent link with carbohydrates to increase the interaction forces between the lectins and their ligands. We first tried to incorporate an original amino acid without success. However, two others were incorporated, with one of them in two target proteins, with sufficient yield to perform affinity measurements. To conclude, during this thesis we have implemented a new technology in the laboratory which allows exploring its potential applications