PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Loes, Andrea N.
AU  - Gentles, Lauren E.
AU  - Greaney, Allison J.
AU  - Crawford, Katharine H. D.
AU  - Bloom, Jesse D.
TI  - Attenuated influenza virions expressing the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain induce neutralizing antibodies in mice
AID  - 10.1101/2020.08.12.248823
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.08.12.248823
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/13/2020.08.12.248823.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/13/2020.08.12.248823.full
AB  - An effective vaccine is essential to controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Here, we describe an influenza-virus-based vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. We incorporated a membrane-anchored form of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike receptor binding domain (RBD) in place of the neuraminidase (NA) coding sequence in an influenza virus also possessing a mutation that reduces the affinity of hemagglutinin for its sialic acid receptor. The resulting ΔNA(RBD)-Flu virus can be generated by reverse genetics and grown to high titers in cell culture. A single-dose intranasal inoculation of mice with ΔNA(RBD)-Flu elicits serum neutralizing antibody titers against SAR-CoV-2 comparable to those observed in humans following natural infection (~1:250). Furthermore, ΔNA(RBD)-Flu itself causes no apparent disease in mice. It might be possible to produce a vaccine similar to ΔNA(RBD)-Flu at scale by leveraging existing platforms for production of influenza vaccines.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.