Replicating bacterium-vectored vaccine expressing SARS-CoV-2 Membrane and Nucleocapsid proteins protects against severe COVID-19-like disease in hamsters.
NPJ Vaccines
; 6(1): 47, 2021 Mar 30.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33785745
ABSTRACT
To generate an inexpensive readily manufactured COVID-19 vaccine, we employed the LVS ΔcapB vector platform, previously used to generate potent candidate vaccines against Select Agent diseases tularemia, anthrax, plague, and melioidosis. Vaccines expressing SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins are constructed using the LVS ΔcapB vector, a highly attenuated replicating intracellular bacterium, and evaluated for efficacy in golden Syrian hamsters, which develop severe COVID-19-like disease. Hamsters immunized intradermally or intranasally with a vaccine co-expressing the Membrane and Nucleocapsid proteins and challenged 5 weeks later with a high dose of SARS-CoV-2 are protected against severe weight loss and lung pathology and show reduced viral loads in the oropharynx and lungs. Protection correlates with anti-Nucleocapsid antibody. This potent vaccine should be safe; inexpensive; easily manufactured, stored, and distributed; and given the high homology between Membrane and Nucleocapsid proteins of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, potentially serve as a universal vaccine against the SARS subset of pandemic causing ß-coronaviruses.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
NPJ Vaccines
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States