A novel C3d-containing oligomeric vaccine provides insight into the viability of testing human C3d-based vaccines in mice

The use of C3d, the final degradation product of complement protein C3, as a “natural” adjuvant has been widely examined since the initial documentation of its immunogenicity-enhancing properties as a consequence of binding to complement receptor 2. Subsequently it was demonstrated that these effects are most evident when oligomeric, rather than when monomeric forms of C3d, are linked to various test protein antigens. In this study, we examined the feasibility of enhancing the adjuvant properties of human C3d further by utilizing C4b-binding protein (C4BP) to provide an oligomeric arrayed scaffold fused to the model antigen, tetanus toxin C fragment (TTCF). High molecular weight, C3d-containing oligomeric vaccines were successfully expressed, purified from mammalian cells and used to immunize groups of mice. Surprisingly, anti-TTCF antibody responses measured in these mice were poor. Subsequently we established by in vitro and in vivo analysis that, in the presence of mouse C3, human C3d does not interact with either mouse or even human complement receptor 2. These data confirm the requirement to develop murine versions of C3d based adjuvant compounds to test in mice or that mice would need to be developed that express both human C3 and human CR2 to allow the testing of human C3d based adjuvants in mouse in any capacity.