Measuring the effects of all Zika virus E protein mutations on broad and narrow antibody neutralization
We first assembled a panel of neutralizing antibodies of varying breadth and potency against Zika and dengue viruses. The neutralization profiles of these antibodies and their structures in complex with E protein homodimer are shown in
Fig. 1. The antibodies chosen have either quaternary or tertiary epitopes, defined by their ability (or lack thereof) to bind single E protein homodimers, as shown in
Fig. 1A. The most broad and potent of these antibodies belong to the E dimer epitope 1 (EDE1) sub-class and are characterized by their quaternary epitope spanning both E monomers within the dimer subunit. This intra-dimer epitope includes parts of the fusion loop, a highly conserved region necessary for membrane fusion, and the b loop of domain II (
24,
26,
28). Both EDE1 subclass antibodies tested, EDE1-C10 and EDE1-C8, neutralize Zika virus and all serotypes of dengue virus (
18,
27) (
Fig. 1B). SIgN-3C is an equally broad neutralizing antibody (
32) but, unlike EDE1, targets an epitope targeting multiple E dimers (
23). In contrast to EDE1 and SIgN-3C antibodies, MZ4 neutralizes Zika and only two serotypes of dengue virus and binds to the domain I/II linker within the E monomer (
20). As a control, we profiled the antibody ZV-67, which has narrow, Zika virus-specific activity and targets an tertiary epitope in domain III (
33).
To perform deep mutational scanning, we regenerated previously described mutant E virus libraries from Zika virus “African” lineage strain MR766 (
35). Despite the laboratory-adapted history of this strain, we reasoned that because Zika viruses share a single serotype (
1), we would be able to identify mutations that affect contemporary strains of Zika virus. We then infected these mutant libraries into cells with each antibody in our panel to select for escape variants and read out the results by deep sequencing as described previously (
35). Each deep mutational scanning experiment was carried out in biological triplicate using three independently generated mutant libraries at antibody concentrations that neutralized >99% of the mutant virus libraries (
Fig. 2A; Table S1). Similar to previous work, we reasoned that this would select for escape mutations with the largest individual effects (
36). For the antibody SIgN-3C, we also performed selections at an additional concentration to improve accuracy of identified escape mutations. To quantify mutation-level antibody escape, we calculated the ratio of a given amino acid mutation in E protein in the antibody-selected libraries relative to the unselected libraries. The correlations for replicate selections are shown in
Fig. S1.
We next plotted the site-level effects of all mutations by summing all individual amino acid antibody escape measurements at a given site in
Fig. 2B. These plots show that there are sites of strong escape from the narrow and pseudo-broad antibodies ZV-67 and MZ4, but only sites of weaker escape from the broad antibodies EDE1-C10, EDE1-C8, and SIgN-3C. For ZV-67 and MZ4, sites with the largest antibody escape occurred within a single E protein region (domain III). In contrast, EDE1-C10, EDE1-C8, and SIgN-3C had smaller peaks of escape scattered across the entire E protein.
The effects of individual amino acid mutations at each site are shown in Fig. S2 to S6. For ZV-67 and MZ4, many different amino acid mutations tended to cause antibody escape at the key sites. However, for the broad antibodies, typically, only one or a handful of mutations at a given site led to viral escape, and the magnitude of escape tended to be lower. A likely explanation is that our approach only identifies escape mutations that are functionally tolerated in live replicative virus, and the broad antibodies tend to target sites in E that are relatively intolerant of mutations.
Comparing functional epitopes identified by deep mutational scanning to structural epitopes
We next compared the sites of antibody escape from the deep mutational scanning to the structural epitopes of the antibodies as determined by prior structural studies (
Fig. 3). The Zika-specific neutralizing antibody, ZV-67, exhibited antibody escape at only three sites—residues A310, A311, and A333—that comprise the core of the structural epitope (
33) (
Fig. 3A). Particularly at site A333, there were many individual mutations with large antibody escape values, representing amino acids with all types of side chains (hydrophobic, hydrophilic, aromatic, acidic, basic, and polar uncharged). In short, a small number of sites comprise the functional epitope of ZV-67; at each of these sites, a diverse array of mutations lead to viral escape. In a similar vein, antibody escape from the pseudo-broad antibody MZ4 is dominated by two sites, K301 and S368 (
Fig. 3B), within the previously described structural epitope (
20). At site K301, deep mutational scanning indicated a wide variety of mutations lead to escape, whereas at site S368, antibody escape was biased toward non-polar hydrophobic mutations. In sum, narrow and pseudo-broad antibodies ZV-67 and MZ4 had a wide variety of escape mutations at a few sites within the structural epitope.
In contrast, broadly neutralizing antibodies were escaped by fewer mutations of weaker effects both within and outside structural epitopes. Despite similar structural epitopes (
24 – 26,
28), EDE1-C10 and EDE1-C8 were escaped by mutations at distinct sets of residues. The EDE1-C10 functional epitope involved the apparent antibody binding footprint (sites T49, R283, and T315) (
24), as well as a site outside the binding footprint at the intra-dimer interface (site V33) (
Fig. 3C). EDE1-C8 was escaped by distinct mutations near the binding footprint and at the intra-dimer interface, with the highest degree of escape occurring at sites S7 and T315 (
Fig. 3D). Interestingly, S7P, one of the mutations with the largest effect for EDE1-C8 and which conceivably introduces a major structural change with a proline substitution in the homodimer core, did not cause appreciable escape from EDE1-C10 (
Fig. 3C and D). In fact, there is very little overlap in the sets of escape sites from these two antibodies, despite substantial overlap in their structural epitopes (
Fig. 3C and E).
Another broad antibody, SIgN-3C, had escape mutations distributed across E protein domains. We identified sites S72, M140, and T315 as those comprising the functional epitope, where few mutations had large individual effects (
Fig. 3F). These functional epitope residues fell within or nearby the previously described structural epitope (
23). Notably, Zhang et al. showed that SIgN-3C Fab is complexed with E homodimers in three distinct conformations, thus widely distributing interaction requirements across E protein (
23). Our data also show signs of lower level selection across other components of these three variable epitopes: the bc loop (82–83), the kl loop (279–281), and nearby residues 315–316 at the intra-dimer interface. This widely distributed and flexible epitope could be the cause of the relatively high levels of noise in this data set (Fig. S6), particularly when compared with antibodies with simpler epitopes (Fig. S2 and S3).
Validations in single-mutant neutralization assays
To validate the findings from our deep mutational scanning, we made single mutations in Zika virus E protein and tested them in dose-response neutralization assays (
Fig. 4). These individual assays allowed us to examine antigenic effect size across a range of antibody concentrations, rather than a single, potent concentration. As we sought to measure the effects of many mutations in high-throughput, we validated mutations in a previously described pseudovirus system that maintains antigenicity of flavivirus particles (
1,
37).
We first assessed the effects of mutations identified in deep mutational scanning of narrow and pseudo-broad antibodies ZV-67 and MZ4 (
Fig. 4A). We saw that mutations identified by ZV-67 selection completely escaped neutralization (
Fig. 4A; Table S1). For MZ4, we validated several escape mutations identified by our deep mutational scanning. A small subset of these mutations (G182D and S368N) were previously identified by passaging experiments with a contemporary “Asian” lineage strain of Zika virus (Paraiba_01), different from the “African” lineage strain used as the basis of our libraries (MR766). Deep mutational scanning identified both the mutation S368N as well as other S368 mutations and K301H as potential escape mutations, all of which validated with large effects in neutralization assays (
Fig. 4A; Table S3). While our traditional neutralization assays validated the effect of G182D in Zika pseudovirus strain MR766, deep mutational scanning of MZ4 did not identify the large effect size of this mutation. Together, we observed that single mutations had large effects on ZV-67 and MZ4 neutralization, either completely ablating neutralization or significantly increasing neutralization resistance.
For broadly neutralizing antibodies, single mutations had far more modest effects. As above, we generated mutant Zika virus MR766 pseudovirus particles and assayed their effects in neutralization assays. Antibody selection with EDE1-C10 had identified the mutations V33I at the intra-dimer interface and T49D within the structural epitope (
Fig. 3C and E). Our neutralization assays demonstrated T49D modestly but significantly affected neutralization resistance, while the effects of V33I on neutralization resistance were minimal or undetectable (
Fig. 4B; Table S4). We also tested the mutation T315Y, which had a smaller mutation-level antibody escape value, but occurred within a site of larger summed antibody escape. We saw T315Y behaved similarly to T315C, a negative control mutation expected to have no effect on neutralization. Finally, we also tested EDE1-C10 against a variety of mutations identified in deep mutational scanning with other antibodies in our panel and saw no significant effects on neutralization.
Deep mutational scanning of another broad antibody, EDE1-C8, selected mutations S7P and N439K outside its structural epitope (
Fig. 3D and E). When we tested these mutations in dose-response neutralization assays against EDE1-C8, we saw that S7P significantly increased neutralization resistance, whereas N439K was neutralized similarly to wild type (
Fig. 4B; Table S5). Again, we tested mutations T315Y and T315C, which had lower mutation-level antibody escape from EDE1-C8 (
Fig. 3D). We saw small magnitude, non-significant effects on neutralization. As expected, when we tested EDE1-C8 against a panel of negative control mutations, we saw minimal effects on neutralization.
Finally, we tested the broad antibody SIgN-3C against a panel of predicted escape mutations, N8T, S72G, and T315Y. To a certain extent, the effect size of these mutations identified from our deep mutational scanning data (
Fig. 3F) correlated with the effect size quantified by traditional neutralization assay. For example, the mutation S72G significantly increased neutralization resistance, whereas T315Y, which had a much smaller antibody escape value, was indistinguishable from wild type (
Fig. 4B; Table S6). However, the mutation N8T, which had a larger antibody escape value, was also neutralized similarly to wild type.
Overall, these neutralization assays validate the finding from the deep mutational scanning that narrow and pseudo-broad antibodies have very large-magnitude escape mutations, while no mutations more than modestly affect neutralization by broad antibodies (
Fig. 4C). For the narrow antibodies, the change in neutralization caused by specific mutations was well predicted by the deep mutational scanning. For the broad antibodies, there was often correspondence between the deep mutational scanning and validation neutralization assays, but the mutation effects were small in both assays and, in some cases, undetectable in the neutralization assays.
Mutational tolerance at functional epitopes of broad and narrow neutralizing antibodies
Together, our deep mutational scanning and traditional neutralization assays showed that many single mutations across a few sites had large effects on neutralization by antibodies with narrow specificities. However, for broadly neutralizing antibodies, we identified only a few mutations across many E protein sites with small effects. Was this because broad antibodies tended to be escaped by mutations that were not well tolerated in the replicative viruses used in our libraries? Or because broadly neutralizing antibodies distribute interaction requirements over a wide range of sites?
To address our first question, we leveraged data published in Sourisseau et al. (
35) assessing the effects of all MR766 E protein mutations on virus infectivity
in vitro. We compared these mutational tolerance values against mutation-level antibody escape in
Fig. 5A. Interestingly, we saw that mutations selected by broad antibodies were not uniformly poorly tolerated. In fact, a few mutations that escaped EDE1-C8 were relatively well tolerated. Crucially, despite being well tolerated, these mutations still conferred relatively low degrees of antibody escape. This becomes particularly evident when compared to antibodies with narrow specificities, like ZV-67, where escape mutations of variable tolerance consistently conferred high degrees of antibody escape.
Next, we examined site-level data to see if interaction requirements were distributed differently between antibodies with broad and narrow specificities. To estimate site-level mutational tolerance, we used two metrics: number of effective amino acids and site entropy. These values were plotted against site-wise summed antibody escape values for all antibodies in
Fig. 5B. These data show that for antibodies with narrower specificities, i.e., MZ4 and ZV-67, antibody escape is focused at a few relatively mutationally tolerant sites. Broadly neutralizing antibodies EDE1-C10, EDE1-C8, and SIgN-3C exhibit distributed antibody escape across sites of varying mutational tolerance. Altogether, these data support both proposed explanations for a lack of large-effect single amino acid escape mutations to broadly neutralizing antibodies. Broadly neutralizing antibodies target both constrained and mutationally tolerant sites but, in all cases, are only weakly escaped by a few mutations at a given site.
Antigenic effect of escape mutations in other flavivirus genetic contexts
We next tested if the antigenic effects of mutations that we had identified and validated in Zika virus MR766 were similar in other flaviviruses. Zika virus MR766 is closely related to a widely utilized contemporary strain of Zika virus, H/PF/2013, sharing ~96% amino acid E sequence identity. It is more distantly related to dengue viruses, sharing only ~54% identity with dengue virus serotype 2 (strain 16681). Nevertheless, as the broad and pseudo-broad antibodies within our panel neutralized this wide variety of viruses, we hypothesized that some degree of antigenicity might be conserved.
To test this hypothesis, we generated single-mutant pseudovirus particles of Zika virus strain H/PF/2013 and dengue virus serotype 2 strain 16681. For each antibody, we selected a single viral E mutation that escaped Zika virus strain MR766 (as validated in
Fig. 4). We then examined a multisequence protein alignment (
Fig. 6A) for the corresponding residues in Zika virus strain H/PF/2013 and dengue virus serotype 2 strain 16681. Where sequence was not conserved, we still mutagenized to the predicted escape residue from our deep mutational scanning. Because this wild-type sequence is not conserved, in
Fig. 6B, we only refer to mutations by site and mutant amino acid code (i.e., “S7P” is now abbreviated to “7P”). Additionally, we accounted for the small deletions in dengue virus E relative to Zika virus, ensuring that the same antigenic regions were mutagenized.
Next, we again performed dose-response neutralization assays and calculated the log fold change from wild-type to mutant IC50s. These values are shown as heatmaps in
Fig. 6B. For EDE1-C8 and EDE1-C10, deep mutational scanning identified the domain I escape mutations 7P and 49D, respectively. Across flavivirus backgrounds, the mutation 7P confers minute-to-modest increases in neutralization resistance against all broadly neutralizing antibodies. Against the pseudo-broadly neutralizing antibody MZ4, 7P is modestly sensitizing. In contrast, 49D only increased resistance to EDE1-C10 neutralization in Zika virus strains, but not in dengue virus. As previously mentioned, the mutation 7P exists at the intra-dimer interface, whereas 49D falls within the binding footprint of EDE1-C10. This potentially explains the relatively conserved effect of 7P relative to 49D, as introducing a proline residue at a critical protein-protein interface might have greater antigenic effects than single charge alterations within a binding footprint. Similarly to EDE1-C10, for MZ4, we saw that the effect of its identified escape mutation K301H was only conserved within Zika virus (
Fig. 6B).
Against SIgN-3C, the mutation 72G conferred neutralization resistance from both strains of Zika virus and dengue virus serotype 2 (
Fig. 6B). Previously, Zhang et al. reported that SIgN-3C neutralizes Zika virus and dengue viruses by different mechanisms: either by aggregating virus particles (Zika) or inhibiting endosomal fusion (dengue) (
23). In combination with their structural studies, our findings suggest that the contribution of 72G is independent of the neutralization mechanism. In summary, these data indicate potential conservation of functional epitopes across divergent flaviviruses of some—but not all—broadly neutralizing antibodies.