Citations 2
Dual spike and nucleocapsid mRNA vaccination confer protection against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants in preclinical models
Hajnik, Renee L. , Plante, Jessica A. , Liang, Yuejin , Alameh, Mohamad‐Gabriel , Tang, Jinyi , Bonam, Srinivasa Reddy , Zhong, Chaojie, Adam, Awadalkareem, Scharton, Dionna , Rafael, Grace, Liu, Yang , Hazell, Nicholas C., Sun, Jiaren , Shi, Pei‐Yong , Wang, Tian , Walker, David H. , Plante, Kenneth S. , Soong, Lynn , Shi, Pei-Yong , Wang, Tian , Sun, Jie , Weissman, Drew , Weaver, Scott C , Plante, Kenneth S , Hu, Haitao , Tang, J , Liu, Yang , Sun, Jie
Science Translational Medicine | September 14, 2022 | Volume: 14 | Issue: 662 | Pages: No page available
Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs), including the highly transmissible Omicron and Delta strains, has posed constant challenges to the current COVID-19 vaccines that principally target the viral spike protein (S). Here, we report a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine that expresses the more conserved viral nucleoprotein (mRNA-N) and show that mRNA-N vaccination alone can induce modest control of SARS-CoV-2. Critically, combining mRNA-N with the clinically proven S-expressing mRNA vaccine (mRNA-S+N) induced robust protection against both Delta and Omicron variants. In the hamster models of SARS-CoV-2 VOC challenge, we demonstrated that, compared to mRNA-S alone, combination mRNA-S+N vaccination not only induced more robust control of the Delta and Omicron variants in the lungs but also provided enhanced protection in the upper respiratory tract. In vivo CD8 + T cell depletion suggested a potential role for CD8 + T cells in protection conferred by mRNA-S+N vaccination. Antigen-specific immune analyses indicated that N-specific immunity, as well as augmented S-specific immunity, was associated with enhanced protection elicited by the combination mRNA vaccination. Our findings suggest that combined mRNA-S+N vaccination is an effective approach for promoting broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants.
IMMUNO-COV v2.0: Development and Validation of a High-Throughput Clinical Assay for Measuring SARS-CoV-2-Neutralizing Antibody Titers
Vandergaast, Rianna , Reiter, Samantha , Lathrum, Chase , Lech, Patrycja, Gnanadurai, Clement W., Haselton, Michelle, Buehler, Jason , Narjari, Riya , Schnebeck, Luke, Roesler, Anne, Sevola, Kara , Suksanpaisan, Lukkana , Bexon, Alice, Naik, Shruthi , Brunton, Bethany, Rafael, Grace, Tran, Sheryl, Baum, Alina , Kyratsous, Christos A. , Peng, Kah Whye, Russell, Stephen J. , Russell, Stephen J , Vandergaast, Rianna , Carey, Timothy S. , Weaver, Scott C
mSphere | June 10, 2021 | Volume: 6 | Issue: 3 | Pages: No page available
Since its emergence at the end of 2019, SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, has caused over 100 million infections and 2.4 million deaths worldwide. Recently, countries have begun administering approved COVID-19 vaccines, which elicit strong immune responses and prevent disease in most vaccinated individuals.