To generate an inexpensive readily manufactured COVID-19 vaccine, we employed the LVS Δ capB vector platform, previously used to generate potent candidate vaccines against Select Agent diseases tularemia, anthrax, plague, and melioidosis. Vaccines expressing SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins are constructed using the LVS Δ capB vector, a highly attenuated replicating intracellular bacterium, and evaluated for efficacy in golden Syrian hamsters, which develop severe COVID-19-like disease. Hamsters immunized intradermally or intranasally with a vaccine co-expressing the Membrane and Nucleocapsid proteins and challenged 5 weeks later with a high dose of SARS-CoV-2 are protected against severe weight loss and lung pathology and show reduced viral loads in the oropharynx and lungs. Protection correlates with anti-Nucleocapsid antibody. This potent vaccine should be safe; inexpensive; easily manufactured, stored, and distributed; and given the high homology between Membrane and Nucleocapsid proteins of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, potentially serve as a universal vaccine against the SARS subset of pandemic causing β-coronaviruses.
【저자키워드】 Live attenuated vaccines, 【초록키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Efficacy, Vaccine, High dose, COVID-19 vaccine, pandemic, antibody, SARS-CoV, hamsters, protection, Protein, Lungs, structural protein, hamster, disease, platform, Lung pathology, weight loss, agent, plague, candidate vaccine, homology, β-Coronaviruses, immunized, develop, intranasally, evaluated, generate, expressing, subset, reduced viral load, tularemia, 【제목키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Vaccine, Protein, hamster, disease, PROTECT, expressing,