Adjuvant-Protein surface Interaction in vaccine formulations: an NMR perspective – API-NMR

Aluminum-hydroxide-based adjuvants can absorb protein antigens from an aqueous solution and it is these adjuvants, as well as those based on aluminum phosphate, that are now widely used in vaccine formulation because of their immunostimulant behavior. The limited data in the literature show that the immune response of a vaccine formulation is related to (i) the structure of the adjuvant, (ii) the surface properties and (iii) the nature of the interaction with antigens and highlight the lack of thorough understanding of the molecular forces driving absorption/release. The objective of this project is to characterize protein/adjuvant interactions at a fundamental level using a model antigen and implementing state-of-the-art solid-state NMR approaches to describe the protein-adjuvant interface with atomic resolution.