Mycobacterium tuberculosis dormancy regulon proteins Rv2627c and Rv2628 as Toll like receptor agonist and as potential adjuvant.

During latency, DosR proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) get activated and help the bacterium to remain dormant. We have shown earlier that 2 such proteins Rv2627c and Rv2628 are immunogenic and induce a TH1 kind of immune response. In this study, through in-vitro experiments we have confirmed that Rv2627c and Rv2628 proteins act as protein Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) agonist-adjuvant. Rv2627c and Rv2628 stimulated THP-1 macrophages showed an increased expression of TLR2, TLR4 and co-stimulatory molecules CD40, CD80, CD86 and antigen presenting molecule HLA-DR. Further studies also found enhanced expression of downstream signaling molecules of TLR activation like MyD88, NF-κB-p65 and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Inhibition studies using TLR blocking antibodies decreased the expression of co-stimulatory molecules, MyD88, NF-κB-p65, and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Rv2627c and Rv2628 stimulation of HEK-TLR2 reporter cell line confirmed the interaction of these proteins with TLR2. Moreover, molecular docking and simulations of Rv2627c and Rv2628 proteins with TLR2 and TLR4 showed stable interactions. The adjuvant activity of Rv2628 was further validated by a protein adjuvanted with pre-clinically validated peptides as multi-epitope vaccine construct which showed good binding with TLR2 and TLR4 and activate dendritic cells and induce sustained pro-inflammatory cytokine response by C-ImmSim analysis. We propose that our vaccine construct will produce a better immune response than BCG and can be taken up as a post-exposure therapeutic subunit vaccine along with standard TB therapy. We also anticipate that our construct can be taken up as a protein adjuvant with other vaccine candidates as these can activate macrophages through TLR signaling.