%0 Journal Article %A Yong Bok Seo %A You Suk Suh %A Ji In Ryu %A Hwanhee Jang %A Hanseul Oh %A Bon-Sang Koo %A Sang-Hwan Seo %A Jung Joo Hong %A Manki Song %A Sung-Joo Kim %A Young Chul Sung %T Soluble Spike DNA vaccine provides long-term protective immunity against SAR-CoV-2 in mice and nonhuman primates %D 2020 %R 10.1101/2020.10.09.334136 %J bioRxiv %P 2020.10.09.334136 %X The unprecedented and rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 has motivated the need for a rapidly producible and scalable vaccine. Here, we developed a synthetic soluble SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) DNA-based vaccine candidate, GX-19. In mice, immunization with GX-19 elicited not only S-specific systemic and pulmonary antibody responses but also Th1-biased T cell responses in a dose-dependent manner. GX-19 vaccinated nonhuman primate seroconverted rapidly and exhibited detectable neutralizing antibody response as well as multifunctional CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses. Notably, when the immunized nonhuman primates were challenged at 10 weeks after the last vaccination with GX-19, they did not develop fever and reduced viral loads in contrast to non-vaccinated primates as a control. These findings indicate that GX-19 vaccination provides durable protective immune response and also support further development of GX-19 as a vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2 in human clinical trials.Competing Interest StatementY.B.S., J.I.R. and H.J. are employees of SL VaxiGen Inc. Y.S.S. and Y.C.S are employees of Genexine Inc. Y.C.S serves as Scientific Advisor for SL VaxiGen. S.K is employee of GenNbio Inc. The remaining authors declare no competing interests. %U https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2020/10/10/2020.10.09.334136.full.pdf