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LC-MS/MS characterization of #SOBERANA®02, a #RBD - #tetanus toxoid conjugate #vaccine against #SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

SOBERANA-02 is a safe and effective conjugate vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, produced using the maleimide-thiol chemistry. In this vaccine, the Cys538 in the recombinant receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 is linked, through a thiosuccinimide linker, to lysine residues of tetanus toxoid (TT) preparation. LC-MS/MS analysis revealed that TT is a complex mixture of proteins, similar to other TTs where the detoxified tetanus neurotoxin (d-TeNT) has been shown to be the most abundant protein (30-56%), regardless the quantification method used. The fifteen most abundant proteins account for approximately 78% of the total proteins. LC-MS/MS analysis of the activation process showed that 102 out of 107 lysine residues in the d-TeNT incorporated a maleimide group. In contrast, when tryptic peptides isolated by Ni2+-NTA affinity chromatography, were analyzed by LC-MS/MS, only 22 Lys residues in the d-TeNT were cross-linked to the RBD C-terminal tryptic peptide (538CVNF541-HHHHHH), probably due to steric hindrance. Twelve and eighteen conjugation sites were assigned based on the identification of linear peptides carrying a conjugated lysine residues (K(+1454.58 Da) or K(+1472.59 Da)) and cross-linked peptides with stabilized linker forms, respectively. Eight conjugation sites were coincidently assigned by both strategies. The assignment of the conjugation sites was manually validated by observed regularities (z equal or higher to 3+, XIC, immonium ions, specific linker fragment ions) not considered by the identification software (PEAKS, Kojak and pLink2). The RBD was also conjugated, but to a lesser extent, to ten other low abundance carrier proteins. To our knowledge, this work is the first report of conjugation site assignment in a TT-based conjugate vaccine.

Source: BioRxIV, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.27.630511v1?rss=1

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