Adv Healthc Mater . Ambient Temperature Stable, Scalable COVID-19 Polymer Particle Vaccines Induce Protective Immunity

[tetano]

Adv Healthc Mater


. 2021 Oct 30;e2102089.
doi: 10.1002/adhm.202102089. Online ahead of print.
Ambient Temperature Stable, Scalable COVID-19 Polymer Particle Vaccines Induce Protective Immunity


Shuxiong Chen ¹ , Benjamin Evert ¹ , Adetayo Adeniyi ² , Mercè Salla-Martret ² , Linda H-L Lua ² , Victoria Ozberk ³ , Manisha Pandey ³ , Michael F Good ³ , Andreas Suhrbier ⁴ , Peter Halfmann ⁵ , Yoshihiro Kawaoka ⁵ , Bernd H A Rehm ^{1 6}



Affiliations

• PMID: 34716678
• DOI: 10.1002/adhm.202102089

Abstract

There is an unmet need for safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that are stable and can be cost-effectively produced at large scale. Here, we used a biopolymer particle (BP) vaccine technology that can be quickly adapted to new and emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2. We describe coronavirus antigen-coated BPs as vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. The spike protein subunit S1 or epitopes from S and M proteins (SM) plus/minus the nucleocapsid protein (N) were selected as antigens to either coat BPs during assembly inside engineered Escherichia coli or BPs were engineered to specifically ligate glycosylated spike protein (S1-ICC) produced by using baculovirus expression in insect cell culture (ICC). BP vaccines were safe and immunogenic in mice. BP vaccines, SM-BP-N and S1-ICC-BP induced protective immunity in the hamster SARS-CoV-2 infection model as shown by reduction of virus titres up to viral clearance in lungs post infection. The BP platform offers the possibility for rapid design and cost-effective large-scale manufacture of ambient temperature stable and globally available vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; biopolyester; self-assembly; vaccine.