The pandemic of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 has raised a new challenges to the scientific and industrious fields after over 1-year spread across different countries. The ultimate approach to end the pandemic is the timely application of vaccines to achieve herd immunity. Here, a novel SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) homodimer was developed as a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate. Formulated with aluminum adjuvant, RBD dimer elicited strong immune response in both rodents and non-human primates, and protected mice from SARS-CoV-2 challenge with significantly reducing viral load and alleviating pathological injury in the lung. In the non-human primates, the vaccine could prevent majority of the animals from SARS-CoV-2 infection in the respiratory tract and reduce lung damage. In addition, antibodies elicited by this vaccine candidate showed cross-neutralization activities to SARS-CoV-2 variants. Furthermore, with our expression system, we provided a high-yield RBD homodimer vaccine without additional biosafety or special transport device supports. Thus, it may serve as a safe, effective, and low-cost SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate.
【저자키워드】 immunology, Biological techniques, 【초록키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Vaccine, pandemic, Immunity, antibody, SARS-COV-2 infection, RBD dimer, lung, SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, biosafety, Spread, SARS-CoV-2 variants, Viral load, mice, RBD, non-human primates, vaccine candidate, respiratory tract, rodent, expression, Injury, aluminum, Safe, lung damage, Transport, domain, pandemic of COVID-19, strong immune response, homodimer, cross-neutralization activity, approach, Prevent, effective, caused, significantly, addition, raised, provided, majority, reducing, reduce, the vaccine, elicited, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19, vaccine candidate, rodent, subunit, elicit,