COVID-19 infected cells can be recognized by T-cells only after SARS-CoV-2 peptides are processed and presented in the context of self MHCs.
Identifying these peptides have essential utilities:
MBL International can assist companies and academic investigators who are actively developing coronavirus vaccines with our unique QuickSwitch™ custom tetramer platform. QuickSwitch™ is a peptide screening plug and play platform that identifies peptides that are more likely to be immunogenic and yet generates corresponding Class I and Class II MHC tetramers. These platforms can identify and validate multi-epitope candidates of SARS-CoV-2 proteins that can potentially elicit for both CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell immune responses. In fact, the QuickSwitch™ custom tetramer kit has been used in peer-reviewed journals by Stephen J. Elledge and Steven A. Rosenberg teams 1,2.
Briefly, the protein sequence of SARS-CoV-2 is known and the predicted epitopes are identified and available published/reviewed by recent articles including one by Dr. Alex Sette:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.946087v2.full.pdf; https://marlin-prod.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/journals/research/cell-host-microbe/PDFs/CHOM_2264_S50.pdf
By using MBLI’s peptide screening MHC tetramer exchange QuickSwitch™ platform, you can identify/validate the binding of predicted peptide sequences of the COVID-19 viral proteins in most common alleles: H2Kb, A2, A11, A24, A3 and DR1, DR4, DR15.
We can help to evaluate hundreds of predicted peptides for their ability to sit in the groove of MHC Class I and II with answers to the following points of inquiry:
1. Does your vaccine elicit T-cell responses in hosts?
a. Validating peptide binding affinities to multiple MHC Class I and II alleles.
b. MHC tetramers for assessing and monitoring immune responses to individual peptides.
2. Information on immunogenic / protective peptides (vaccine design/fine tuning)
a. Identifying and validating promiscuous MHC class II epitopes.
b.Testing modified peptides on anchoring amino acids for optimal MHC binding and T-cell activation.
3. In addition, this platform can also be used in in vitro assays to identify immune-potentiating candidate agents for their ability to enhance vaccines potency.
Please contact us today for a personalized discussion to see how we can quickly help you gather accurate and relevant information for your research against COVID-19.
1.Kula, Tomasz, et al. “T-Scan: A Genome-Wide Method for the Systematic Discovery of T Cell Epitopes.” Cell, vol. 178, no. 4, 2019, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2019.07.009.