Yik Ling Bowie Cheng
Postdoctoral Scholar, Immunity Transplant Infection
All Publications
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Sialylated IgG induces the transcription factor REST in alveolar macrophages to protect against lung inflammation and severe influenza disease.
Immunity
2024
Abstract
While most respiratory viral infections resolve with little harm to the host, severe symptoms arise when infection triggers an aberrant inflammatory response that damages lung tissue. Host regulators of virally induced lung inflammation have not been well defined. Here, we show that enrichment for sialylated, but not asialylated immunoglobulin G (IgG), predicted mild influenza disease in humans and was broadly protective against heterologous influenza viruses in a murine challenge model. Mechanistic studies show that sialylated IgG mediated this protection by inducing the transcription factor repressor element-1 silencing transcription factor (REST), which repressed nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB)-driven responses, preventing severe lung inflammation and protecting lung function during influenza infection. Therapeutic administration of a recombinant, sialylated Fc molecule in clinical development similarly activated REST and protected against severe influenza disease, demonstrating that this pathway could be clinically harnessed. Overall, induction of REST through sialylated IgG signaling is a strategy to limit inflammatory disease sequelae in infections caused by antigenically distinct influenza strains.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.immuni.2024.10.002
View details for PubMedID 39541970
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Early non-neutralizing, afucosylated antibody responses are associated with COVID-19 severity.
Science translational medicine
1800: eabm7853
Abstract
A damaging inflammatory response is implicated in the pathogenesis of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but mechanisms contributing to this response are unclear. In two prospective cohorts, early non-neutralizing, afucosylated IgG antibodies specific to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were associated with progression from mild to more severe COVID-19. In contrast to the antibody structures that were associated with disease progression, antibodies that were elicited by mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were instead highly fucosylated and enriched in sialylation, both modifications that reduce the inflammatory potential of IgG. To study the biology afucosylated IgG immune complexes, we developed an in vivo model that revealed that human IgG-Fc gamma receptor (FcgammaR) interactions could regulate inflammation in the lung. Afucosylated IgG immune complexes isolated from COVID-19 patients induced inflammatory cytokine production and robust infiltration of the lung by immune cells. By contrast, vaccine-elicited IgG did not promote an inflammatory lung response. Together, these results show that IgG-FcgammaR interactions are able to regulate inflammation in the lung and may define distinct lung activities associated with the IgG that are associated with severe COVID-19 and protection against infection with SARS-CoV-2.
View details for DOI 10.1126/scitranslmed.abm7853
View details for PubMedID 35040666