Developing an Effective Peptide-Based Vaccine for COVID-19: Preliminary Studies in Mice Models.
Viruses
; 14(3)2022 02 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1699480
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused massive health and economic disasters worldwide. Although several vaccines have effectively slowed the spread of the virus, their long-term protection and effectiveness against viral variants are still uncertain. To address these potential shortcomings, this study proposes a peptide-based vaccine to prevent COVID-19. A total of 15 B cell epitopes of the wild-type severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike (S) protein were selected, and their HLA affinities predicted in silico. Peptides were divided into two groups and tested in C57BL/6 mice with either QS21 or Al(OH)3 as the adjuvant. Our results demonstrated that the peptide-based vaccine stimulated high and durable antibody responses in mice, with the T and B cell responses differing based on the type of adjuvant employed. Using epitope mapping, we showed that our peptide-based vaccine produced antibody patterns similar to those in COVID-19 convalescent individuals. Moreover, plasma from vaccinated mice and recovered COVID-19 humans had the same neutralizing activity when tested with a pseudo particle assay. Our data indicate that this adjuvant peptide-based vaccine can generate sustainable and effective B and T cell responses. Thus, we believe that our peptide-based vaccine can be a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, particularly because of the flexibility of including new peptides to prevent emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and avoiding unwanted autoimmune responses.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Viral Vaccines
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Vaccines
/
Variants
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
V14030449
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