ABSTRACT
Safe and effective vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its variants are the best approach to successfully combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the viral spike protein is a major target to develop candidate vaccines. α-Galactosylceramide (αGalCer), a potent invariant natural killer T cell (iNKT) agonist, was site-specifically conjugated to the N-terminus of the RBD to form an adjuvant-protein conjugate, which was anchored on the liposome surface. This is the first time that an iNKT cell agonist was conjugated to the protein antigen. Compared to the unconjugated RBD/αGalCer mixture, the αGalCer-RBD conjugate induced significantly stronger humoral and cellular responses. The conjugate vaccine also showed effective cross-neutralization to all variants of concern (B.1.1.7/alpha, B.1.351/beta, P.1/gamma, B.1.617.2/delta, and B.1.1.529/omicron). These results suggest that the self-adjuvanting αGalCer-RBD has great potential to be an effective COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and this strategy might be useful for designing various subunit vaccines.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 Vaccines/therapeutic use , COVID-19/therapy , Galactosylceramides/therapeutic use , Peptide Fragments/therapeutic use , SARS-CoV-2/immunology , Vaccines, Conjugate/therapeutic use , Adjuvants, Immunologic/chemistry , Adjuvants, Immunologic/therapeutic use , Animals , Antibodies, Neutralizing/immunology , Antibodies, Viral/immunology , COVID-19 Vaccines/chemistry , COVID-19 Vaccines/immunology , Female , Galactosylceramides/chemistry , Galactosylceramides/immunology , Immunity, Humoral/drug effects , Immunity, Innate/drug effects , Interferon-gamma/metabolism , Liposomes/chemistry , Liposomes/immunology , Liposomes/therapeutic use , Mice, Inbred BALB C , Peptide Fragments/chemistry , Peptide Fragments/immunology , Protein Domains , Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/chemistry , Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/immunology , Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/therapeutic use , Vaccines, Conjugate/chemistry , Vaccines, Conjugate/immunologyABSTRACT
Clinical studies are ongoing to assess whether existing vaccines may afford protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection through trained immunity. In this exploratory study, we analyze immunization records from 137,037 individuals who received SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests. We find that polio, Haemophilus influenzae type-B (HIB), measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), Varicella, pneumococcal conjugate (PCV13), Geriatric Flu, and hepatitis A/hepatitis B (HepA-HepB) vaccines administered in the past 1, 2, and 5 years are associated with decreased SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, even after adjusting for geographic SARS-CoV-2 incidence and testing rates, demographics, comorbidities, and number of other vaccinations. Furthermore, age, race/ethnicity, and blood group stratified analyses reveal significantly lower SARS-CoV-2 rate among black individuals who have taken the PCV13 vaccine, with relative risk of 0.45 at the 5 year time horizon (n: 653, 95% CI (0.32, 0.64), p-value: 6.9e-05). Overall, this study identifies existing approved vaccines which can be promising candidates for pre-clinical research and Randomized Clinical Trials towards combating COVID-19.