Vaccines (Basel) . Soluble Spike DNA Vaccine Provides Long-Term Protective Immunity against SARS-CoV-2 in Mice and Nonhuman Primates

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Vaccines (Basel)


. 2021 Mar 24;9(4):307.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines9040307.
Soluble Spike DNA Vaccine Provides Long-Term Protective Immunity against SARS-CoV-2 in Mice and Nonhuman Primates


Yong Bok Seo ¹ , You Suk Suh ² , Ji In Ryu ¹ , Hwanhee Jang ¹ , Hanseul Oh ³ , Bon-Sang Koo ³ , Sang-Hwan Seo ⁴ , Jung Joo Hong ³ , Manki Song ⁴ , Sung-Joo Kim ⁵ , Young Chul Sung ^{1 2}



Affiliations

• PMID: 33804981
• DOI: 10.3390/vaccines9040307

Abstract

The unprecedented and rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2) has motivated the need for a rapidly producible and scalable vaccine. Here, we developed a synthetic soluble SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) DNA-based vaccine candidate, GX-19. In mice, immunization with GX-19 elicited not only S-specific systemic and pulmonary antibody responses but also Th1-biased T cell responses in a dose-dependent manner. GX-19-vaccinated nonhuman primates seroconverted rapidly and exhibited a detectable neutralizing antibody response as well as multifunctional CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses. Notably, when the immunized nonhuman primates were challenged at 10 weeks after the last vaccination with GX-19, they had reduced viral loads in contrast to non-vaccinated primates as a control. These findings indicate that GX-19 vaccination provides a durable protective immune response and also support further development of GX-19 as a vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: COVID-19; DNA vaccine.