Avci, Fikri 照片

Avci, Fikri

职称未知

所属大学: The University of Georgia

所属学院: Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

邮箱:
avci@uga.edu

个人主页:
http://www.bmb.uga.edu/directory/fikri-avci

研究领域

Glycoconjugate vaccines provide enormous health benefits against bacterial pathogens, yet conjugation of polysaccharides to proteins has often been a “black art,” with poorly defined chemistry resulting in inadequately characterized conjugates. Especially problematic has been the lack of appreciation of the molecular and cellular interactions by which the immune system processes these complex antigens. We reported the most comprehensive study to date on the immune mechanisms involved in glycoconjugate vaccine activation of adaptive immune machinery (Nature Medicine 17, 1602; Nature Protocols 7, 2180). We demonstrated for the first time that carbohydrates that were previously considered to be “T cell independent” antigens can indeed be specifically recognized by T cells (i.e., Tcarbs) (Fig. 1). Our conclusions are a major departure from the traditional understanding that the T cells can only recognize peptides presented by the MHC proteins. Using the knowledge gained from our mechanistic studies, we designed and synthesized a model new-generation glycoconjugate vaccine with much greater immunogenicity than its traditional counterpart (Fig. 2). Data in our article map out a conceptual framework on which to base future investigations of vaccine immunogenicity and vaccine design based on carbohydrate antigens found not only in bacterial pathogens but also in other pathogens (e.g., parasites, viruses) and cancer cells.

近期论文

Dustin Middleton, Lina Sun, Amy Paschall, Fikri Y. Avci*. T Cell Mediated Humoral Immune Responses to Type 3 Capsular Polysaccharide of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Journal of Immunology (in press). Dustin Middleton, Walter Lorenz, Fikri Y. Avci*. Complete Genome Sequence of the Bacterium Bacillus circulans Jordan Strain 32352. Genome Announcements 5, e00289-17 (2017). M. Osman Sheikh, Stephanie M. Halmo, Sneha Patel, Dustin Middleton, Hideyuki Takeuchi, Christopher M. Schafer, Christopher M. West, Robert S. Haltiwanger, Fikri Y. Avci, Kelley W. Moremen, Lance Wells. Rapid screening of sugar-nucleotide donor specificities of putative glycosyltransferases Glycobiology 27, 206-212 (2016). Fikri Y. Avci*. A chicken vaccine to protect humans from diarrheal disease. Glycobiology 26, 1137-1139 (2016). Lina Sun, Dustin Middleton, Paeton Wantuch, Ahmet Ozdilek, Fikri Y. Avci*. Carbohydrates as T cell Antigens with Implications to Health and Disease. Glycobiology 26, 1029-1040 (2016). Guoyun Li, Lingyun Li, Changhu Xue, Dustin Middleton, Robert J. Linhardt, Fikri Y. Avci*. Profiling pneumococcal type 3-derived oligosaccharides by liquid chromatograph-tandem mass spectrometry. Journal of Chromatography A 1397, 43-51 (2015). Dingding An, Sungwhan F. Oh, Torsten Olszak, Joana F. Neves, Fikri Y. Avci, Deniz Erturk-Hasdemir, Xi Lu, Sebastian Zeissig, Richard S. Blumberg, Dennis L. Kasper. Sphingolipids from a symbiotic microbe regulate homeostasis of host intestinal natural killer T cells. Cell 156, 123-133 (2014). Fikri Y. Avci*. Novel Strategies for Development of Next-Generation Glycoconjugate Vaccines. Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry 13, 2535-2540 (2013). Fikri Y. Avci*, Xiangming Li, Moriya Tsuji, Dennis L. Kasper. Carbohydrates and T cells: A sweet twosome. Seminars in Immunology 25, 146-151 (2013). Vincent L. Chen, Fikri Y. Avci, Dennis L. Kasper. A Maternal Vaccine against Group B Streptococcus: Past, Present and Future. Vaccine 31, D13-D19 (2013). Fikri Y. Avci, Xiangming Li, Moriya Tsuji, Dennis L. Kasper. Isolation of carbohydrate-specific CD4+ T cell clones from mice after stimulation by two model glycoconjugate vaccines. Nature Protocols 7, 2180-2192 (2012). Fikri Y. Avci, Xiangming Li, Moriya Tsuji, Dennis L. Kasper. A mechanism for glycoconjugate vaccine activation of the adaptive immune system and its implications for vaccine design. Nature Medicine 17, 1602-1609 (2011). i. News and Views by Rino Rappuoli, Ennio De Gregorio. A sweet T cell response. Nature Medicine 17, 1551-1552 (2011). ii. The Distillery. Rational design of glycoconjugate vaccines. Science-Business eXchange 4, 1366 (2011). iii. Research Highlights by Laura DeFrancesco et al. Improving glycoconjugate vaccines. Nature Biotechnology 30, 158 (2012). iv. Research Highlights by Monica H. Flight. Enhancing glycan presentation increases vaccine efficacy. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 11, 21-22 (2012). v. Faculty of 1000 evaluated and rated by Michael Kurilla. F1000 Pharmacology & Drug Discovery (2012). vi. Selected as “The Paper of the Month” by International Society for Vaccines, Vaccine (2012). Fikri Y. Avci*, Dennis L. Kasper. How bacterial carbohydrates influence the adaptive immune system. Annual Review of Immunology 28, 107-130 (2010). Alexis Choi, Leyla Slamti, Fikri Y. Avci, Gerald B. Pier, Tomás Maira-Litrán. The pgaABCD locus of Acinetobacter baumannii encodes the production of poly-β-1-6-N-acetyl glucosamine PNAG that is critical for biofilm formation. Journal of Bacteriology 191, 5953-5963 (2009). Jinyou Duan, Fikri Y. Avci, Dennis L. Kasper. Microbial carbohydrate depolymerization by antigen-presenting cells: Deamination prior to presentation by the MHCII pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 105, 5183-5188 (2008). Fikri Y. Avci, Paul DeAngelis, Jian Liu, Robert J. Linhardt. “Chemoenzymatic sythesis of glycosaminoglycans: Improving on nature”, book entitled “Frontiers in Carbohydrate Chemistry” in “ACS Symposium Series”, by Oxford University Press 960, 253-284 (2007). Breca Tracy, Fikri Y. Avci, Paul L. DeAngelis, Robert J. Linhardt. Acceptor specificity of the Pasteurella hyaluronan and chondroitin synthases and production of chimeric glycosaminoglycans. Journal of Biological Chemistry 282, 337-344 (2007). Tatiana N. Laremore, Saravanababu Murugesan, Tae-joon Park, Fikri Y. Avci, Dmitri V. Zagorevski, Robert J. Linhardt. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization mass spectrometric analysis of uncomplexed highly sulfated oligosaccharides using ionic liquid matrices. Analytical Chemistry 78, 1774-1779 (2006). Robert J. Linhardt, Fikri Y. Avci, Toshiko Toida,Yeong Shik Kim, Miroslaw Cygler “CS Lyases: Structure, activity and applications in analysis and the treatment of diseases”, book entitled “Chondroitin Sulfate Structure, Role and Pharmacological Activity” in the series “Advanced Pharmacology” by ELSEVIER 53, 187-215 (2006).