Novel enzymatic DNA produced from a text file achieves comparable immune responses as plasmid vaccine

novel-enzymatic-dna-produced-from-a-text-file-achieves-comparable-immune-responses-as-plasmid-vaccine
Novel enzymatic DNA produced from a text file achieves comparable immune responses as plasmid vaccine

Data availability

The DNA sequence encoding HA and in silico optimized for enzymatic DNA synthesis was deposited to GenBank (accession number PV750927). An enzymatically-optimized HA variant (GenBank PX367232, containing R238K residue for production batch-tracking purposes) was also deposited. PacBio sequencing data generated by this study can be retrieved from the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under the BioProject ID PRJNA1329312.

Code availability

Computational code used for sequence analysis is hosted on GitHub (see https://github.com/timplab/pacbio_eds_rca).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Nick Riddiford for assistance with sequence bioinformatics, and Sylvian Dubourg and Florence Mahé for assistance with DNA synthesis and assembly. We also thank Tyler Hammond, Craig Galligan, Lisa Lowery, Wei Gao, Alex Corwin, and Zhen Liu for assistance with reagent prep, DNA scale-up, and downstream purification. This work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) under contract #N66001-21-C-4014 (awarded to GE). Portions of this work were also supported by DARPA and the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRN) (Award HR0011-21-9-0001). D.B.W. is additionally supported by NIH/NIAID Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVIC) contract 75N93019C00051, the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Distinguished Professorship in Cancer Research, and the Jill and Mark Fishman Foundation. N.J.T. is supported by T32CA009171. The opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of DARPA or the US government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    James Fuller & Deborah H. Fuller

  2. GE HealthCare Technology & Innovation Center, One Research Circle, Niskayuna, NY, USA

    Erik Kvam, Weston Griffin & John Nelson

  3. DNA Script Inc., Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France

    Sandrine Creton, Rebecca Ryan & Xavier Godron

  4. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Courtney Hall & Winston Timp

  5. Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Nicholas J. Tursi, Kerry Blatney & David B. Weiner

  6. Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Nicholas J. Tursi

Authors

  1. James Fuller
  2. Erik Kvam
  3. Sandrine Creton
  4. Courtney Hall
  5. Nicholas J. Tursi
  6. Kerry Blatney
  7. Rebecca Ryan
  8. Xavier Godron
  9. David B. Weiner
  10. Winston Timp
  11. Weston Griffin
  12. John Nelson
  13. Deborah H. Fuller

Contributions

S.C. and R.R. lead enzymatic oligo synthesis and gene assembly. E.K., J.N., and W.G. lead DNA propagation, including rolling circle amplification and DNA purification. C.H. and W.T. conducted sequence analysis of the generated DNA. J.F., N.J.T., and K.B. performed DNA immunization and analyzed mouse results. X.G., D.B.W., J.N., W.G., E.K., and D.H.F. assisted in supervision and manuscript editing. E.K., N.J.T., S.C., and C.H. prepared the initial draft manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Erik Kvam or Deborah H. Fuller.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare the following, which may be considered as potential competing interests: S.C., R.R., and X.G. are employees of DNA Script and have filed patent applications pertaining to aspects of this work. E.K., J.N., and W.G. are employees of GE HealthCare and have filed patent applications pertaining to aspects of this work. D.B.W. is a consultant for and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for INOVIO Pharmaceuticals. D.H.F. is a consultant for and co-founder of Orlance Inc. Neither Orlance nor INOVIO were involved in the study design, data collection, data analysis, or manuscript preparation. D.B.W. participates in industry collaborations; has received speaking honoraria; and has received fees for consulting, including serving on scientific review committees. Remunerations received by D.B.W. include direct payments and equity/options. D.B.W. also discloses the following associations with commercial partners: Geneos (consultant/advisory board), AstraZeneca (advisory board, speaker), and Pfizer (advisory board). All other authors declare that they have no competing interests related to this work.

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Fuller, J., Kvam, E., Creton, S. et al. Novel enzymatic DNA produced from a text file achieves comparable immune responses as plasmid vaccine. npj Vaccines (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-025-01329-0

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