Protective efficacy of a SARS-CoV-2 DNA vaccine in wild-type and immunosuppressed Syrian hamsters

Abstract A worldwide effort to counter the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in hundreds of candidate vaccines moving through various stages of research and development, including several vaccines in phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials. A relatively small number of these vaccines have been evaluated in SA...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rebecca L. Brocato, Steven A. Kwilas, Robert K. Kim, Xiankun Zeng, Lucia M. Principe, Jeffrey M. Smith, Jay W. Hooper
Format: article
Language:EN
Published: Nature Portfolio 2021
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Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/021913bd329840d1928fea1d69b27f9e
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Summary:Abstract A worldwide effort to counter the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in hundreds of candidate vaccines moving through various stages of research and development, including several vaccines in phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials. A relatively small number of these vaccines have been evaluated in SARS-CoV-2 disease models, and fewer in a severe disease model. Here, a SARS-CoV-2 DNA targeting the spike protein and delivered by jet injection, nCoV-S(JET), elicited neutralizing antibodies in hamsters and was protective in both wild-type and transiently immunosuppressed hamster models. This study highlights the DNA vaccine, nCoV-S(JET), we developed has a great potential to move to next stage of preclinical studies, and it also demonstrates that the transiently-immunosuppressed Syrian hamsters, which recapitulate severe and prolonged COVID-19 disease, can be used for preclinical evaluation of the protective efficacy of spike-based COVID-19 vaccines.