RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 SARS-CoV-2 Virus like Particles produced by a single recombinant baculovirus generate potent neutralizing antibody that protects against variant challenge
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.11.29.470349
DO 10.1101/2021.11.29.470349
A1 Edward Sullivan
A1 Po-Yu Sung
A1 Weining Wu
A1 Neil Berry
A1 Sarah Kempster
A1 Deborah Ferguson
A1 Neil Almond
A1 Ian M. Jones
A1 Polly Roy
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/11/30/2021.11.29.470349.abstract
AB The Covid-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection has highlighted the need for the rapid generation of efficient vaccines for emerging disease. Virus-like particles, VLPs, are an established vaccine technology that produces virus-like mimics, based on expression of the structural proteins of a target virus that can stimulate strong neutralizing antibody responses. SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus where the basis of VLP formation has been shown to be the co-expression of the spike, membrane and envelope structural proteins. Here we describe the generation of SARS-CoV-2 VLPs by the co-expression of the salient structural proteins in insect cells using the established baculovirus expression system. VLPs were heterologous ∼100nm diameter enveloped particles with a distinct fringe that reacted strongly with SARS-CoV-2 convalescent sera. In a Syrian hamster challenge model, a non-adjuvanted VLPs induced neutralizing antibodies to the VLP-associated Wuhan S protein, reduced virus shedding following a virulent challenge with SARS-CoV-2 (B.1.1.7 variant) and protected against disease associated weight loss. Immunized animals showed reduced lung pathology and lower challenge virus replication than the non-immunized controls. Our data, using an established and scalable technology, suggest SARS-CoV-2 VLPs offer an efficient vaccine that mitigates against virus load and prevents severe disease.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.