Mammalian Antigen Display for Pandemic Countermeasures

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Virology
• Immunology

Background:

• Rapid antigen design is crucial for pandemic countermeasures, including vaccine development and viral surveillance.
• Current cell surface display methods, often using yeast, struggle with large viral glycoproteins.
• Efficiently linking protein variants to their DNA sequences is essential for high-throughput screening.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a mammalian cell surface display platform for viral antigens.
• To overcome the limitations of yeast display for expressing large viral proteins.
• To facilitate rapid antigen design, antibody response profiling, and viral lineage surveillance.

Main Methods:

• Designed and expressed viral antigens on the surface of mammalian HEK293T cells.
• Utilized flow cytometry for screening surface-displayed proteins, bypassing purification steps.
• Applied the platform for screening stabilizing mutations, deep mutational scanning, and epitope mapping.

Main Results:

• Successfully demonstrated antigen expression on mammalian cell surfaces.
• Showcased the utility of the platform in three distinct use cases.
• Validated the efficiency of screening without protein purification.

Conclusions:

• The mammalian antigen display platform accelerates the design and analysis of viral antigens.
• This technology enhances capabilities for pandemic preparedness and response.
• Enables faster development of vaccines and diagnostic tools.