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- Title
Synergistic Immunity and Protection in Mice by Co-Immunization with DNA Vaccines Encoding the Spike Protein and Other Structural Proteins of SARS-CoV-2.
- Authors
Chen, Jinni; Huang, Baoying; Deng, Yao; Wang, Wen; Zhai, Chengcheng; Han, Di; Wang, Na; Zhao, Ying; Zhai, Desheng; Tan, Wenjie
- Abstract
The emergence of new variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has generated recurring worldwide infection outbreaks. These highly mutated variants reduce the effectiveness of current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, which are designed to target only the spike (S) protein of the original virus. Except for the S of SARS-CoV-2, the immunoprotective potential of other structural proteins (nucleocapsid, N; envelope, E; membrane, M) as vaccine target antigens is still unclear and worthy of investigation. In this study, synthetic DNA vaccines encoding four SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins (pS, pN, pE, and pM) were developed, and mice were immunized with three doses via intramuscular injection and electroporation. Notably, co-immunization with two DNA vaccines that expressed the S and N proteins induced higher neutralizing antibodies and was more effective in reducing the SARS-CoV-2 viral load than the S protein alone in mice. In addition, pS co-immunization with either pN or pE + pM induced a higher S protein-specific cellular immunity after three immunizations and caused milder histopathological changes than pS alone post-challenge. The role of the conserved structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2, including the N/E/M proteins, should be investigated further for their applications in vaccine design, such as mRNA vaccines.
- Subjects
SARS-CoV-2; CYTOSKELETAL proteins; DNA vaccines; HUMORAL immunity; HERD immunity; COVID-19
- Publication
Vaccines, 2023, Vol 11, Issue 2, p243
- ISSN
2076-393X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/vaccines11020243