Publication date: Sep 23, 2024
Protein and vaccine therapies based on mRNA would benefit from an increase in translation capacity. Here, we report a method to augment translation named ligation-enabled mRNA-oligonucleotide assembly (LEGO). We systematically screen different chemotopological motifs and find that a branched mRNA cap effectively initiates translation on linear or circular mRNAs without internal ribosome entry sites. Two types of chemical modification, locked nucleic acid (LNA) N-methylguanosine modifications on the cap and LNA + 5 cD7 2′ O-methyl on the 5′ untranslated region, enhance RNA-eukaryotic translation initiation factor (eIF4E-eIF4G) binding and RNA stability against decapping in vitro. Through multidimensional chemotopological engineering of dual-capped mRNA and capped circular RNA, we enhanced mRNA protein production by up to tenfold in vivo, resulting in 17-fold and 3. 7-fold higher antibody production after prime and boost doses in a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccine setting, respectively. The LEGO platform opens possibilities to design unnatural RNA structures and topologies beyond canonical linear and circular RNAs for both basic research and therapeutic applications.
Concepts | Keywords |
---|---|
Biotechnol | Augment |
Coronavirus | Cap |
Lego | Capped |
Methylguanosine | Chemical |
Mrnas | Chemotopological |
Circular | |
Design | |
Fold | |
Lego | |
Linear | |
Mrna | |
Production | |
Rna | |
Translation | |
Vaccine |
Semantics
Type | Source | Name |
---|---|---|
pathway | REACTOME | Translation |
disease | IDO | protein |
pathway | KEGG | Ribosome |
disease | IDO | nucleic acid |
disease | IDO | production |