Biology subjects

Reddy, G. V.

Publications and source records attributed to Reddy, G. V..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

RelCoVax(R), a two antigen subunit protein vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2 induces strong immune responses in mice

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an unprecedented movement to develop safe and effective vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus to immunize the global population. The first set of vaccine candidates that received emergency use authorization targeted the spike (S) glycoprotein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that enables virus entry into cells via the receptor binding domain (RBD). Recently, multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged with mutations in S protein and the ability to evade neutralizing antibodies in vaccinated individuals. We have developed a dual RBD and nucleocapsid (N) subunit protein vaccine candidate named RelCoVax(R) through heterologous expression in mammalian cells (RBD) and E. coli (N). The RelCoVax(R) formulation containing a combination of aluminum hydroxide (alum) and a synthetic CpG oligonucleotide as adjuvants elicited high antibody titers against RBD and N proteins in mice after a prime and boost dose regimen administered 2 weeks apart. The vaccine also stimulated cellular immune responses with a potential Th1 bias as evidenced by increased IFN-{gamma} release by splenocytes from immunized mice upon antigen exposure particularly N protein. Finally, the serum of mice immunized with RelCoVax(R) demonstrated the ability to neutralize two different SARS-CoV-2 viral strains in vitro including the Delta strain that has become dominant in many regions of the world and can evade vaccine induced neutralizing antibodies. These results warrant further evaluation of RelCoVax(R) through advanced studies and contribute towards enhancing our understanding of multicomponent subunit vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2019

Is shed hair the most effective non-invasive resource for estimating wild pedigrees?

Wild pedigrees are critical for better understanding mating systems and inbreeding scenarios to inform conservation strategies for endangered species. To delineate pedigrees in wild populations, many identified individuals will have to be genotyped at thousands of loci, mostly from non-invasive samples. This requires us to quantify (a) the most common non-invasive sample available from identified individuals (b) the ability to acquire genome-wide data from such samples, and (c) the quality of such genome-wide data, and its ability to reconstruct relationships between animals within a population. We followed identified individuals from a wild endangered tiger population, and found that shed hair samples were most common compared to fecal samples, carcasses and opportunistic invasive samples. DNA extraction, library preparation and whole genome sequencing resulted in between 126,129 and 512,689 SNPs from across the genome for four such samples. Exploratory population genetic analyses revealed that these data were free of holistic biases, and could recover expected population structure and relatedness. Mitochondrial genomes recovered matrilineages as suggested by long-term monitoring data. Even with these few samples, we were able to uncover the matrilineage for an individual with unknown ancestry. In summary, we demonstrated that non-invasive shed hair samples yielded adequate quality/quantity DNA AND in conjunction with sensitive library preparation methods, provided reliable data from hundreds of thousands of SNPs across the genome. This makes shed hair are an effective resource for studying individual-based genetics of elusive endangered species.

genomics↗