Publication date: Dec 06, 2024
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a betacoronavirus that causes severe respiratory illness in humans. There are no licensed vaccines against MERS-CoV and only a few candidates in phase I clinical trials. Here, we develop MERS-CoV vaccines utilizing a computationally designed protein nanoparticle platform that has generated safe and immunogenic vaccines against various enveloped viruses, including a licensed vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Two-component nanoparticles displaying spike (S)-derived antigens induce neutralizing responses and protect mice against challenge with mouse-adapted MERS-CoV. Epitope mapping reveals the dominant responses elicited by immunogens displaying the prefusion-stabilized S-2P trimer, receptor binding domain (RBD), or N-terminal domain (NTD). An RBD nanoparticle elicits antibodies targeting multiple non-overlapping epitopes in the RBD. Our findings demonstrate the potential of two-component nanoparticle vaccine candidates for MERS-CoV and suggest that this platform technology could be broadly applicable to betacoronavirus vaccine development.
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| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Betacoronavirus | CP: Immunology |
| Mouse | EMPEM |
| Nanoparticle | MERS-CoV |
| Safe | nanoparticle |
| Vaccines | NTD |
| RBD | |
| spike | |
| vaccine |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | IDO | protein |
| disease | MESH | Middle East respiratory syndrome |
| disease | MESH | causes |