Rapid protection from COVID-19 in nonhuman primates vaccinated intramuscularly but not intranasally with a single dose of a recombinant vaccine

Abstract The ongoing pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to exert a significant burden on health care systems worldwide. With limited treatments available, vaccination remains an effective strategy to counter transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:bioRxiv 2021-01
Main Authors: Furuyama, Wakako, Shifflett, Kyle, Pinski, Amanda N, Griffin, Amanda J, Feldmann, Friederike, Okumura, Atsushi, Gourdine, Tylisha, Allen Jankeel, Lovaglio, Jamie, Hanley, Patrick W, Thomas, Tina, Clancy, Chad S, Messaoudi, Ilhem, Kyle L O’donnell, Marzi, Andrea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 vaccines
Disease transmission
Health care
Immune response
Immune response (cell-mediated)
Immunogenicity
Pandemics
Pneumonia
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Spike protein
Stomatitis
Transcription
Vaccination
Vaccines
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Summary:Abstract The ongoing pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to exert a significant burden on health care systems worldwide. With limited treatments available, vaccination remains an effective strategy to counter transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Recent discussions concerning vaccination strategies have focused on identifying vaccine platforms, number of doses, route of administration, and time to reach peak immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Here, we generated a single dose, fast-acting vesicular stomatitis virus-based vaccine derived from the licensed Ebola virus (EBOV) vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV, expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and the EBOV glycoprotein (VSV-SARS2-EBOV). Rhesus macaques vaccinated intramuscularly (IM) with a single dose of VSV-SARS2-EBOV were protected within 10 days and did not show signs of COVID-19 pneumonia. In contrast, intranasal (IN) vaccination resulted in limited immunogenicity and enhanced COVID-19 pneumonia compared to control animals. While IM and IN vaccination both induced neutralizing antibody titers, only IM vaccination resulted in a significant cellular immune response. RNA sequencing data bolstered these results by revealing robust activation of the innate and adaptive immune transcriptional signatures in the lungs of IM-vaccinated animals only. Overall, the data demonstrates that VSV-SARS2-EBOV is a potent single-dose COVID-19 vaccine candidate that offers rapid protection based on the protective efficacy observed in our study. One sentence summary VSV vaccine protects NHPs from COVID-19 in 10 days Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
DOI:10.1101/2021.01.19.426885