RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A single dose of recombinant VSV-ΔG-spike vaccine provides protection against SARS-CoV-2 challenge
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.06.18.160655
DO 10.1101/2020.06.18.160655
A1 Yfat Yahalom-Ronen
A1 Hadas Tamir
A1 Sharon Melamed
A1 Boaz Politi
A1 Ohad Shifman
A1 Hagit Achdout
A1 Einat B. Vitner
A1 Ofir Israeli
A1 Elad Milrot
A1 Dana Stein
A1 Inbar Cohen-Gihon
A1 Shlomi Lazar
A1 Hila Gutman
A1 Itai Glinert
A1 Lilach Cherry
A1 Yaron Vagima
A1 Shirley Lazar
A1 Shay Weiss
A1 Amir Ben-Shmuel
A1 Roy Avraham
A1 Reut Puni
A1 Edith Lupu
A1 Elad Bar David
A1 Assa Sittner
A1 Noam Erez
A1 Ran Zichel
A1 Emanuelle Mamroud
A1 Ohad Mazor
A1 Haim Levy
A1 Orly Laskar
A1 Shmuel Yitzhaki
A1 Shmuel C. Shapira
A1 Anat Zvi
A1 Adi Beth-Din
A1 Nir Paran
A1 Tomer Israely
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/19/2020.06.18.160655.abstract
AB The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in December 2019 in China resulted in over 7.8 million infections and over 430,000 deaths worldwide, imposing an urgent need for rapid development of an efficient and cost-effective vaccine, suitable for mass immunization. Here, we generated a replication competent recombinant VSV-ΔG-spike vaccine, in which the glycoprotein of VSV was replaced by the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2. In vitro characterization of the recombinant VSV-ΔG-spike indicated expression and presentation of the spike protein on the viral membrane with antigenic similarity to SARS-CoV-2. A golden Syrian hamster in vivo model for COVID-19 was implemented. We show that vaccination of hamsters with recombinant VSV-ΔG-spike results in rapid and potent induction of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, single-dose vaccination was able to protect hamsters against SARS-CoV-2 challenge, as demonstrated by the abrogation of body weight loss of the immunized hamsters compared to unvaccinated hamsters. Furthermore, whereas lungs of infected hamsters displayed extensive tissue damage and high viral titers, immunized hamsters’ lungs showed only minor lung pathology, and no viral load. Taken together, we suggest recombinant VSV-ΔG-spike as a safe, efficacious and protective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infection.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.