Issue 21, 2022

Multidomain peptide hydrogel adjuvants elicit strong bias towards humoral immunity

Abstract

Adjuvants play a critical role in enhancing vaccine efficacy; however, there is a need to develop new immunomodulatory compounds to address emerging pathogens and to expand the use of immunotherapies. Multidomain peptides (MDPs) are materials composed of canonical amino acids that form injectable supramolecular hydrogels under physiological salt and pH conditions. MDP hydrogels are rapidly infiltrated by immune cells in vivo and have previously been shown to influence cytokine production. Therefore, we hypothesized that these immunostimulatory characteristics would allow MDPs to function as vaccine adjuvants. Herein, we demonstrate that loading antigen into MDP hydrogels does not interfere with their rheological properties and that positively charged MDPs can act as antigen depots, as demonstrated by their ability to release ovalbumin (OVA) over a period of 7–9 days in vivo. Mice vaccinated with MDP-adjuvanted antigen generated significantly higher IgG titers than mice treated with the unadjuvanted control, suggesting that these hydrogels potentiate humoral immunity. Interestingly, MDP hydrogels did not elicit a robust cellular immune response, as indicated by the lower production of IgG2c and smaller populations of tetramer-positive CD8+ T splenocytes compared to mice vaccinated alum-adjuvanted OVA. Together, the data suggest that MDP hydrogel adjuvants strongly bias the immune response towards humoral immunity while evoking a very limited cellular immune response. As a result, MDPs may have the potential to serve as adjuvants for applications that benefit exclusively from humoral immunity.

Graphical abstract: Multidomain peptide hydrogel adjuvants elicit strong bias towards humoral immunity

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 8 2022
Accepted
31 8 2022
First published
08 9 2022

Biomater. Sci., 2022,10, 6217-6229

Author version available

Multidomain peptide hydrogel adjuvants elicit strong bias towards humoral immunity

B. H. Pogostin, M. H. Yu, A. R. Azares, E. M. Euliano, C. S. E. Lai, G. Saenz, S. X. Wu, A. C. Farsheed, S. M. Melhorn, T. P. Graf, D. G. Woodside, J. D. Hartgerink and K. J. McHugh, Biomater. Sci., 2022, 10, 6217 DOI: 10.1039/D2BM01242A

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