VaxSkin®
Human immunological insights
for vaccine candidate selection
VaxSkin®
Human immunological insights for vaccine candidate selection
Multi-modal immunoprofiling of skin response to vaccines using VaxSkin®
Dive deep into human immunology with VaxSkin®. VaxSkin® is designed to enable the examination of the early stages of the human immune responses to vaccines and adjuvants in their natural environment at the site of injection.
With precision at its core, VaxSkin® identifies key immune responses and delivers crucial data ahead of clinical trials. Powered by HypoSkin® technology, VaxSkin® combines bio-stabilized, immunocompetent ex vivo human skin with multiomics and computational molecular pathway analysis, providing insights into the early stages of human immune responses to vaccine injection. Advance your research and mitigate developmental risks by accurately selecting the most promising vaccine candidates.
VaxSkin®: Integrated multiomic assays to select the most promising candidate
VaxSkin® is a platform built on four pivotal axes that allow a comprehensive immunoprofiling of the human skin response to vaccines over time at both the organ and single-cell levels.
ASSESS TISSUE-LEVEL INFLAMMATION
Assess the modulation of cytokines in response to vaccine injection. Uncover biological pathways activated upon vaccine injection based on cytokines secreted.
EVALUATE GLOBAL SKIN MODULATION UPON VACCINE INJECTION
Gain insights into the sequential interactions between the exogenous substance and the skin’s biological processes by uncovering the tissue-level gene expression pathways affected by the adjuvant and vaccine.
UNDERSTAND IMMUNE CELL TYPES INVOLVED IN VACCINE RESPONSE
Detect cell-specific transcriptomic modulations in multiple skin-resident cells after vaccination. Uncover which immune cells are involved in mRNA vaccine internalization and response.
ANALYZE APC ACTIVATION UPON VACCINE INJECTION
Investigate APC activation at the protein level with multiplex spatial imaging (MANTIS®).
Assess tissue-level inflammation
Assess tissue inflammatory response with multiplex cytokine release analysis.
The ability of a vaccine to induce a global inflammatory response in the skin represents an early indication of its potency. With VaxSkin®, we employ multiplex cytokine release assays combined with a proprietary bioinformatics approach to differentiate cytokines directly influenced by vaccine injections from those exclusively modulated by adjuvants. VaxSkin® leverages AUDACY (Automated Data Analysis of Cytokines), our advanced bioinformatics-based analytics tool, to map the biological pathways associated with cytokine release that are triggered by vaccine administration. By pulling data from publicly available and peer-reviewed online databases, AUDACY provides a comprehensive view of the secretome and the immune mechanisms activated.
This tissue-level analysis offers valuable insights into a vaccine candidate’s ability to stimulate the secretion of cytokines and chemokines by activated antigen-presenting cells, helping assess their immunogenic potential with precision.
VaxSkin® ensures reliable results by using HypoSkin® models from many donors (10+). This method ensures statistically significant results of secretomic signature, allowing for more accurate characterization of the activated biological pathways implicated in the vaccine response.
Evaluate the immune response at the tissue level using bulk RNA sequencing
When a vaccine is administered, the entire skin ecosystem adapts to react to the external stimuli.
Using bulk RNA sequencing, subtle alterations in gene expression following vaccine administration can be detected.
This enables the distinction of the precise chain of events occurring between the exogenous substance and the skin’s biological processes.
VaxSkin® utilizes HypoSkin® models from seven donors, which can be the same donors used for immunogenicity assessment. We run three replicates for each donor to ensure accuracy.
After performing standard bulk RNA sequencing, VaxSkin® interrogates publicly available data to identify potential biological pathways associated with the detected differentially expressed genes (DEGs). This offers crucial insights into the processes at play in the skin tissue following vaccination.
Understand which immune cell types are involved in vaccine response using single-cell RNA sequencing
VaxSkin® offers a comprehensive analysis at the single-cell level to identify immune cell types that are involved in response to the vaccine or adjuvant.
Furthermore, VaxSkin® can detect the signaling pathways activated by the vaccine at the single cell level. How is this accomplished?
VaxSkin® uses single-cell RNA sequencing, allowing identification of the unique gene expression patterns in various immune cell subsets. This enables assessment of their activation states, to gain a better understanding of their functional roles in response to vaccines.
Moreover, VaxSkin® has the capability of tracking mRNA vaccine sequences and observing the related changes in transcriptomic profiles.
To deliver comprehensive immunoprofiling, a single-cell RNA sequencing analysis on enriched skin-resident CD45+ cells from dissociated HypoSkin® models was performed, following vaccine administration. Additionally, we have developed an analytical pipeline that systematically tracks and quantifies the presence of vaccine mRNA copies within cells. This enables us to investigate related changes in transcriptomic states at the single-cell level.
Single-cell RNA sequencing on enriched skin-resident CD45+ cells.
Single-cell RNA sequencing exogenous vaccine mRNA detection.
Analyze APC activation upon vaccine injection
For effective vaccination, it is crucial that antigen presenting cells (APCs) exhibit a mature phenotype.
VaxSkin® leverages our proprietary spatial biology platform, MANTIS®, to study APC activation post-vaccine delivery.
This spatial biology approach provides an additional dimension to single-cell analysis by shedding light on how immune cells are arranged across all skin layers and how they interact with one another. As a result, MANTIS® enables us to track the relocation of APCs to the dermis following vaccination.
To precisely identify APCs, we have developed a nine-color panel that targets Langerhans cells (LCs), dendritic cells (DCs), and Langerin-positive dendritic cells (Langerin+ DCs). To assess the activation status of APCs, the panel incorporates cell-specific markers, including CCR7, CD80, CD83, CD86, CD40, and pan-HLA.
