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- ItemYields and Immunomodulatory Effects of Pneumococcal Membrane Vesicles Differ with the Bacterial Growth Phase(Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2021) Mehanny, Mina; Kroniger, Tobias; Koch, Marcus; Hoppstädter, Jessica; Becher, Dörte; Kiemer, Alexandra K.; Lehr, Claus-Michael; Fuhrmann, GregorStreptococcus pneumoniae infections are a leading cause of death worldwide. Bacterial membrane vesicles (MVs) are promising vaccine candidates because of the antigenic components of their parent microorganisms. Pneumococcal MVs exhibit low toxicity towards several cell lines, but their clinical translation requires a high yield and strong immunogenic effects without compromising immune cell viability. MVs are isolated during either the stationary phase (24 h) or death phase (48 h), and their yields, immunogenicity and cytotoxicity in human primary macrophages and dendritic cells have been investigated. Death-phase vesicles showed higher yields than stationary-phase vesicles. Both vesicle types displayed acceptable compatibility with primary immune cells and several cell lines. Both vesicle types showed comparable uptake and enhanced release of the inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-6, from human primary immune cells. Proteomic analysis revealed similarities in vesicular immunogenic proteins such as pneumolysin, pneumococcal surface protein A, and IgA1 protease in both vesicle types, but stationary-phase MVs showed significantly lower autolysin levels than death-phase MVs. Although death-phase vesicles produced higher yields, they lacked superiority to stationary-phase vesicles as vaccine candidates owing to their similar antigenic protein cargo and comparable uptake into primary human immune cells.
- ItemAn Outer Membrane Vesicle-Based Permeation Assay (OMPA) for Assessing Bacterial Bioavailability(Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2021) Richter, Robert; Kamal, Mohamed A.M.; Koch, Marcus; Niebuur, Bart-Jan; Huber, Anna-Lena; Goes, Adriely; Volz, Carsten; Vergalli, Julia; Kraus, Tobias; Müller, Rolf; Schneider-Daum, Nicole; Fuhrmann, Gregor; Pagès, Jean-Marie; Lehr, Claus-MichaelWhen searching for new antibiotics against Gram-negative bacterial infections, a better understanding of the permeability across the cell envelope and tools to discriminate high from low bacterial bioavailability compounds are urgently needed. Inspired by the phospholipid vesicle-based permeation assay (PVPA), which is designed to predict non-facilitated permeation across phospholipid membranes, outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) of Escherichia coli either enriched or deficient of porins are employed to coat filter supports for predicting drug uptake across the complex cell envelope. OMVs and the obtained in vitro model are structurally and functionally characterized using cryo-TEM, SEM, CLSM, SAXS, and light scattering techniques. In vitro permeability, obtained from the membrane model for a set of nine antibiotics, correlates with reported in bacterio accumulation data and allows to discriminate high from low accumulating antibiotics. In contrast, the correlation of the same data set generated by liposome-based comparator membranes is poor. This better correlation of the OMV-derived membranes points to the importance of hydrophilic membrane components, such as lipopolysaccharides and porins, since those features are lacking in liposomal comparator membranes. This approach can offer in the future a high throughput screening tool with high predictive capacity or can help to identify compound- and bacteria-specific passive uptake pathways.
- ItemStreptococcal Extracellular Membrane Vesicles Are Rapidly Internalized by Immune Cells and Alter Their Cytokine Release(Lausanne : Frontiers Media, 2020) Mehanny, Mina; Koch, Marcus; Lehr, Claus-Michael; Fuhrmann, GregorExtracellular vesicles are membranous structures shed by almost every living cell. Bacterial gram-negative outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) and gram-positive membrane vesicles (MVs) play important roles in adaptation to the surrounding environment, cellular components' exchange, transfer of antigens and virulence factors, and infection propagation. Streptococcus pneumoniae is considered one of the priority pathogens, with a global health impact due to the increase in infection burden and growing antibiotic resistance. We isolated MVs produced from the S. pneumoniae reference strain (R6) and purified them via size exclusion chromatography (SEC) to remove soluble protein impurities. We characterized the isolated MVs by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) and measured their particle size distribution and concentration. Isolated MVs showed a mean particle size range of 130–160 nm and a particle yield of around 1012 particles per milliliter. Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) images revealed a very heterogeneous nature of isolated MVs with a broad size range and various morphologies, arrangements, and contents. We incubated streptococcal MVs with several mammalian somatic cells, namely, human lung epithelial A549 and human keratinocytes HaCaT cell lines, and immune cells including differentiated macrophage-like dTHP-1 and murine dendritic DC2.4 cell lines. All cell lines displayed excellent viability profile and negligible cytotoxicity after 24-h incubation with MVs at concentrations reaching 106 MVs per cell (somatic cells) and 105 MVs per cell (immune cells). We evaluated the uptake of fluorescently labeled MVs into these four cell lines, using flow cytometry and confocal microscopy. Dendritic cells demonstrated prompt uptake after 30-min incubation, whereas other cell lines showed increasing uptake after 2-h incubation and almost complete colocalization/internalization of MVs after only 4-h incubation. We assessed the influence of streptococcal MVs on antigen-presenting cells, e.g., dendritic cells, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and observed enhanced release of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, a slight increase of interleukin (IL)-10 secretion, and no detectable effect on IL-12. Our study provides a better understanding of gram-positive streptococcal MVs and shows their potential to elicit a protective immune response. Therefore, they could offer an innovative avenue for safe and effective cell-free vaccination against pneumococcal infections. © Copyright © 2020 Mehanny, Koch, Lehr and Fuhrmann.