Journal of Nanobiotechnology (Jan 2022)

Nanocages engineered from Bacillus Calmette-Guerin facilitate protective Vγ2Vδ2 T cell immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection

  • Jiang Pi,
  • Zhiyi Zhang,
  • Enzhuo Yang,
  • Lingming Chen,
  • Lingchan Zeng,
  • Yiwei Chen,
  • Richard Wang,
  • Dan Huang,
  • Shuhao Fan,
  • Wensen Lin,
  • Hongbo Shen,
  • Jun-Fa Xu,
  • Gucheng Zeng,
  • Ling Shen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12951-021-01234-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 1
pp. 1 – 21

Abstract

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Abstract Tuberculosis (TB), induced by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection, remains a top killer among infectious diseases. While Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is the sole TB vaccine, the clumped-clustered features of BCG in intradermal immunization appear to limit both the BCG protection efficacy and the BCG vaccination safety. We hypothesize that engineering of clumped-clustered BCG into nanoscale particles would improve safety and also facilitate the antigen-presenting-cell (APC)’s uptake and the following processing/presentation for better anti-TB protective immunity. Here, we engineered BCG protoplasts into nanoscale membraned BCG particles, termed as “BCG-Nanocage” to enhance the anti-TB vaccination efficiency and safety. BCG-Nanocage could readily be ingested/taken by APC macrophages selectively; BCG-Nanocage-ingested macrophages exhibited better viability and developed similar antimicrobial responses with BCG-infected macrophages. BCG-Nanocage, like live BCG bacilli, exhibited the robust capability to activate and expand innate-like T effector cell populations of Vγ2+ T, CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells of rhesus macaques in the ex vivo PBMC culture. BCG-Nanocage immunization of rhesus macaques elicited similar or stronger memory-like immune responses of Vγ2Vδ2 T cells, as well as Vγ2Vδ2 T and CD4+/CD8+ T effectors compared to live BCG vaccination. BCG-Nanocage- immunized macaques developed rapidly-sustained pulmonary responses of Vγ2Vδ2 T cells upon Mtb challenge. Furthermore, BCG- and BCG-Nanocage- immunized macaques, but not saline controls, exhibited undetectable Mtb infection loads or TB lesions in the Mtb-challenged lung lobe and hilar lymph node at endpoint after challenge. Thus, the current study well justifies a large pre-clinical investigation to assess BCG-Nanocage for safe and efficacious anti-TB vaccination, which is expected to further develop novel vaccines or adjuvants. Graphical Abstract

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