Chromatin Nanofiber displaying Cell-penetrating peptides for DNA Vaccine Application

Activity: SupervisionMaster Dissertation Supervision

Description

Cancer has been extensively studied to develop better therapeutics, however current treatments are still considered to be less-effective, leading to the poor prognosis. Recently, DNA vaccine has been one of promising cancer treatments by inducing systemic anti-tumor immune responses with little side effects. However, DNA vaccine should overcome some barriers for the clinical applications that requires effective DNA delivery to cell nuclei and cell/tissue-specific targeting. Here, we aim to examine a DNA vaccine delivery system using cell penetration peptide-displaying chromatin. In this study, the histone genes were engineered to fuse either HIV TAT peptide or HSV gH625-644 peptide at the N terminus. Individual histones and octamers were prepared for chromatin assembly in vitro using plasmids. Our results showed high penetration efficiency of HSV gH625-644 peptide-fused histones and possible nuclear localization evidence of gH625-644 modified chromatins. The studies suggest that chromatin can be a useful platform for a potential DNA vaccine delivery application, which deem to explore further tumor antigen gene expressions in tissue culture models and animal studies.
Period6 Jul 2023
ExamineeXinghan Zhang
Examination held at
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • DNA vaccine delivery