A fragment of anthrax lethal factor delivers proteins to the cytosol without requiring protective antigen.

Anthrax protective antigen (PA) is a 735-aa polypeptide that facilitates the exit of anthrax lethal factor (LF) from the endosome to the cytosol where the toxin acts. We recently found, however, that a fusion protein of the detoxified N-terminal domain of lethal factor (LFn) with a foreign peptide could induce CD8 T cell immune responses in the absence of PA. Because CD8 T cells recognize peptides derived from proteins degraded in the cytosol, this result suggests that lethal factor may be capable of entering the cytosol independently of PA. To investigate this further, the intracellular trafficking of an LFn-enhanced green fluorescent protein fusion protein (LFn-GFP) in the presence or absence of PA was examined by using confocal microscopy. LFn-GFP is able to enter the cytosol without PA. Moreover, it efficiently colocalizes with the proteosome 20s subunit, which degrades proteins into peptides for presentation to CD8 T cells by the MHC class I pathway. We further demonstrate that in the presence of an immune adjuvant LFn fusion protein without PA is able to effectively elicit anti-HIV cytotoxic T lymphocyte in inbred mice. These results indicate that LFn may be used without PA in a protein vaccine as a carrier to deliver antigens into the cytosol for efficient induction of T lymphocyte responses. Furthermore, these results enable us to propose a modified molecular mechanism of anthrax lethal toxin.