Progress and current situation of sars-cov-2 subunit vaccine development

ABSTRACT

Since the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease in late 2019, it has been a global public safety emergency to efficiently prevent and control the epidemic. Vaccine is one of the means to effectively prevent the virus from infecting humans, protect high-risk groups from rapid disease progression and minimize further spread of the virus-caused epidemic. Subunit vaccine is a safe and effective strategy that contains recombinant protein antigens of specific viral components and vaccine adjuvant that helps increasing the immunogenicity of the antigen. Since the specific immunogenic viral antigen can activate the immune system, which thus produces antibodies against immunodominant epitopes on the surface of the protein antigen, it offers subunit vaccine a high degree of protection and safety. The major severe acute respiratory symptom coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) subunit vaccines that have been marketed and are currently in the clinical stage are reviewed. The design concepts of various antigens and types of vaccine adjuvants, the protective capacity, and the research progress of subunit vaccine candidates are introduced. The applications and technical advantages of subunit vaccine are analyzed. This review is expected to provide suggestions for subunit vaccine development and global epidemic prevention and control. © 2022, China Biotechnology. All rights reserved.