Thesis subject

Advanced LEGO: engineering tailor-made glycans on recombinant worm proteins

Helminths are parasitic worms that have successfully co-evolved with their host immune system to sustain long-term infections. Their successful parasitism is mainly facilitated by modulation of the host immune system via the release of excretory-secretory (ES) products covered with diverse glycan motifs. Evidence is accumulating that these glycans play key roles in different aspects of helminth infection including interactions with immune cells for recognition and evasion of host defenses. Moreover, antigenic properties of glycans can be exploited for improving the efficacy of anti-helminthic vaccines.

For this reason, our lab develops a versatile toolbox to engineer specific helminth glycan motifs (and others). Our activities comprise:

  1. modifying the glycosylation pathway of plants
  2. analysing the subcellularlocalisation of glycan-modifying enzymes with confocal microscopy
  3. functional characterisation of novel glycan-modifying enzymes
  4. CRISPR-mediated genome editing
  5. production of glycan-modifying enzymes in bacteria
  6. in vitro glycosylation

Overall, your thesis work will contribute to the development of a versatile expression platform, and, in turn, could open up new avenues for the development of novel biopharmaceuticals, vaccines and diagnostic tools based on engineered helminth glycoproteins with a tailor-made glycan composition.