COVID-19 has emerged, and has rapidly become a major health problem worldwide, causing millions of mortalities. Vaccination against COVID-19 is the most efficient way to stop the pandemic. The goal of vaccines is to induce neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 virus. Here, we present a novel double mosaic virus-like particle (VLP) displaying two independent neutralizing epitopes, namely the receptor binding motif (RBM) located in S1 and the fusion peptide (AA 817–855) located in S2. CuMV TT virus-like particles were used as VLP scaffold and both domains were genetically fused in the middle of CuMV TT subunits, which co-assembled into double mosaic particles (CuMV TT -DF). A single fusion mosaic particle (CuMV TT -FP) containing the fusion peptide only was used for comparison. The vaccines were produced in E. coli , and electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering confirmed their integrity and homogeneity. In addition, the CuMV TT -DF vaccine was well recognized by ACE2 receptor, indicating that the RBM was in native conformation. Both CuMV TT -FP and CuMV TT -DF vaccines induced high levels of high avidity IgG antibodies as well as IgA recognizing spike and RBD in the case of CuMV TT -DF. Both vaccine candidates induced virus-neutralizing antibodies indicating that the fusion peptide can independently induce virus-neutralizing antibodies. In contrast, CuMV TT -DF containing both RBM and fusion peptide induced a higher level of neutralizing antibodies suggesting that the new double mosaic vaccine candidate CuMV TT -DF consisting of two antigens in one VLP maybe an attractive candidate for scale-up in a bacterial fermentation process for clinical development.
【저자키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Vaccine, COVID19, Virus-like particle, CuMVTT-DF, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, neutralizing antibody, pandemic, ACE2 receptor, SARS-CoV-2 virus, Particle, Antigen, Health, IgG antibody, RBD, IgA, Microscopy, vaccine candidate, fusion peptide, receptor binding motif, VLP, Bacterial, E. coli, domain, clinical development, homogeneity, virus-neutralizing antibodies, subunits, mortalities, neutralizing epitopes, independent, virus-neutralizing antibody, produced, was used, addition, were used, induce, recognizing, displaying, fused, RBM, scattering, 【제목키워드】 novel, fusion, mosaic, RBM,