Mehrnoosh Ebadi’s Post

Deciphering the human antibody response against Burkholderia pseudomallei during melioidosis using a comprehensive immunoproteome approach https://lnkd.in/gqtutPix

Two articles demonstrating persistent circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in plasma of long-COVID patients: -       Craddock et al,. J Med Virol. 2023: o  https://lnkd.in/eDhY6Cmw -       Swank et al., Clin Infect Dis. 2023 o  https://lnkd.in/e6_6yb3h Both articles use relatively straight forward technologies for detection: PCR to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA or ELISA/antibody arrays to detect SARS-CoV-2 protein in plasma, and observe an increase in particles associated with PASC/Long-COVID symptoms. I wonder why these assays haven’t been commercialised / made publicly available for routine use? Surely, they would be useful to help determine cause of symptoms for some Long-COVID patients?

We’ve been tracing the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 from the earliest days of the pandemic. As part of our program developing antibodies to prevent spike protein cell entry via cleavage at the S1/S2 site by furin, we’ve followed the evolution of the S1/S2 sequence as it emerged from one dominant variant to the next. Which brings us to our most recent research on JN.1, the new (and tenacious) dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant. Read our latest blog for a summary of what’s known to-date about this new strain, and what we revealed when examining it through the lens of our Cellestive discovery platform. Click the link below to learn more! https://hubs.li/Q02m_L7P0

An interesting paper for (at least) two reasons: the most obvious is that in many regions, snakebites remain a significant cause of serious injury and death, and access to existing specific anti-venom can be limited; on the basic science side, it's an antibody designed to be broadly neutralising. "Here, we used a synthetic human antibody library to find and develop an antibody that neutralizes long-chain three-finger α-neurotoxins produced by numerous medically relevant snakes." #Immunology https://lnkd.in/dxyi6-5i

This week’s #ChemSciPicks is an excellent Edge article from Jeremiah Gassensmith et al. In this manuscript, Gassensmith et al. show that the biomimetic mineralisation of the inert model antigen ovalbumin (OVA) in zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) significantly improves the humoral immune response over three bolus doses of OVA (OVA 3×). Encapsulation of OVA in ZIF-8 (OVA@ZIF-8) demonstrates higher serum antibody titers against OVA than (OVA 3×), while OVA@ZIF vaccinated mice displayed higher populations of germinal centre B cells and IgG1 + GC B cells as opposed to (OVA 3×), indicative of class-switching recombination. The mechanism was found to be at least partly owed to metalloimmunological effects of the zinc metal, as well as sustained release of OVA from the ZIF-8 composite. The system acts as an antigen reservoir for antigen-presenting cells to traffic into the draining lymph node, enhancing humoral response. The model system OVA@ZIF is produced quickly at the gram scale in a laboratory setting, sufficient for up to 20,000 vaccine doses. Read the work in full and for free here: https://lnkd.in/e-85eNQQ

Excited for this work, which was started by Olivia Chastain and finished by Ryanne Ehrman. We show a few things here but one bit I’m pretty excited for is the hint that the zinc itself is enhancing the immune response in addition to a typical depot effect. That zinc and the immune system are liked, especially nutritionally, is fairly established. How zinc can help a normal functional immune system recognize antigens (aka the active drug in a vaccine) is less established and we got our first tast it might help strengthen vaccines… Right now, vaccines are “adjuvanted” or strengthened using alumn. Using a different metal-based adjuvant that’s less cytotoxic would be beneficial, especially if the immune response it produces is different. The idea that zinc itself may be an adjuvant didn’t pop up until late peer review…so, we can only tease the possibility of metalloimmology in action and try to hedge our claims while also being a bit speculative … way too much unknown… so, I guess, we will just have to keep studying this to see if we we can make zinc-based/MOF based vaccines. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Montelukast (5) is a leukotriene receptor antagonist shown to lower #cytokine release and #lung #inflammation , reducing clinical deterioration in patients admitted with #covid19 [63]. This reduction in infection severity may be due to #montelukast binding to the C-terminal end of NSP1 to alleviate the inhibition of host protein synthesis, resulting in an increased immune response that lowers viral replication, as seen in the decreased expression of viral spike protein in virally infected HEK293T-ACE2 and Vero E6 cells [5,21]. As an FDA-approved drug for treating #asthma, montelukast could be a candidate for drug repurposing to treat COVID-19. https://lnkd.in/eUPbVfqF #infectiousdiseases #virology #drugdiscovery #nih #cdc #fda #publichealth

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A high-throughput immuno-affinity mass spectrometry method for detecting and quantifying SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein in human saliva has been developed. The method was compared with RT-PCR, RT-LAMP, and lateral flow rapid antigen tests. The study found that the detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein in saliva was less frequent than the detection of viral RNA. The SISCAPA-LC-MS method demonstrated efficiency, processing multiple samples in less than 150 minutes, and scalability, allowing for high throughput. This approach offers an alternative for SARS-CoV-2 detection with potential advantages in terms of speed and scalability. #SARSCoV2Detection #MassSpectrometry #SalivaTesting #HighThroughputMethod #DiagnosticMethods #HealthResearch #RTPCR #RTLAMP #AntigenTest