Structure-based design of stable recombinant hepatitis C virus E1E2 heterodimers
Joan Capella-Pujol, Fabian Mulder, Fabien Cannac, Stan Peters, Maddy L. Newby, Meliawati Poniman, Ian Zon, Wouter Olijhoek, Tim Beaumont, Max Crispin, Andrew B. Ward, Janke Schinkel, Rogier W. Sanders, Kwinten Sliepen · 2026
Read Structure-based design of stable recombinant hepatitis C virus E1E2 heterodimers by Joan Capella-Pujol, Fabian Mulder, Fabien Cannac, Stan Peters, Maddy L. Newby, Meliawati Poniman, Ian Zon, Wouter Olijhoek, Tim Beaumont, Max Crispin, Andrew B. Ward, Janke Schinkel, Rogier W. Sanders, Kwinten Sliepen (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13507286.txt.
Description
Joan Capella-Pujol leads a 2026 team that redesigns the hepatitis C virus envelope pair E1E2 into stable, native-like vaccine antigens. No hepatitis C vaccine exists, and E1E2 is the only known target of neutralizing antibodies, yet it folds poorly and shifts shape. Starting from a zipper-held design, repeated structure-guided tweaks followed.
New versions bound shape-sensitive antibodies at least a hundred times more strongly and resisted heat better. Designs spanned several virus genotypes, and one dropped the artificial zipper entirely. A frozen microscopy structure with a neutralizing antibody revealed an unusual binding site. Rabbit tests showed stability alone did not broaden protection, though zipper removal improved matched-strain responses.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Joan Capella-Pujol, Fabian Mulder, Fabien Cannac, Stan Peters, Maddy L. Newby, Meliawati Poniman, Ian Zon, Wouter Olijhoek, Tim Beaumont, Max Crispin, Andrew B. Ward, Janke Schinkel, Rogier W. Sanders, Kwinten Sliepen |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 72 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |