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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, an assortment of vaccines has been developed. Nucleic acid vaccines have the advantage of rapid production, as they only require a viral antigen sequence and can readily be modified to detected viral mutations. Doggybone™ DNA vaccines targeting the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 have been generated and compared with a traditionally manufactured, bacterially derived plasmid DNA vaccine that utilizes the same spike sequence. Administered to Syrian hamsters by jet injection at two dose levels, the immunogenicity of both DNA vaccines was compared following two vaccinations. Immunized hamsters were then immunosuppressed and exposed to SARS-CoV-2. Significant differences in body weight were observed during acute infection, and lungs collected at the time of euthanasia had significantly reduced viral RNA, infectious virus, and pathology compared with irrelevant DNA-vaccinated controls. Moreover, immune serum from vaccinated animals was capable of neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest and importance in vitro. These data demonstrate the efficacy of a synthetic DNA vaccine approach to protect hamsters from SARS-CoV-2.

Details

Title
SARS-CoV-2 Doggybone DNA Vaccine Produces Cross-Variant Neutralizing Antibodies and Is Protective in a COVID-19 Animal Model
Author
Mucker, Eric M 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Brocato, Rebecca L 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Principe, Lucia M 1 ; Kim, Robert K 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Zeng, Xiankun 2 ; Smith, Jeffrey M 1 ; Kwilas, Steven A 1 ; Kim, Sungwon 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Horton, Helen 3 ; Caproni, Lisa 3 ; Hooper, Jay W 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Virology Division, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA; [email protected] (E.M.M.); [email protected] (R.L.B.); [email protected] (L.M.P.); [email protected] (J.M.S.); [email protected] (S.A.K.) 
 Pathology Division, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21702, USA; [email protected] (R.K.K.); [email protected] (X.Z.) 
 Touchlight Genetics, Ltd., London TW12 2ER, UK; [email protected] (S.K.); [email protected] (H.H.); [email protected] (L.C.) 
First page
1104
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
2076393X
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2694078009
Copyright
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.