Human H-ferritin presenting RBM of spike glycoprotein as potential vaccine of SARS-CoV-2

  1. Dehui Yao
  2. Fang Lao
  3. Zeyi Zhang
  4. Yan Liu
  5. Jianwei Cheng
  6. Fengjiao Ding
  7. Xiaofei Wang
  8. Lun Xi
  9. Chuang Wang
  10. Xichong Yan
  11. Rongkun Zhang
  12. Fangxing Ouyang
  13. Hui Ding
  14. Tianyi Ke

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Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has so far inflicted millions of people all around the world and will have a long lasting effect on every aspect of everyone’s life. Yet there is no effective approved treatment for the disease. In an effort of utilizing human ferritin as nanoplatform for drug delivery, we engineered a fusion protein by presenting receptor-binding motif (RBM) of SARS-CoV-2 virus spike glycoprotein on the N-terminus of ferritin subunits. The designed fusion protein with a cage-like structure, similar to that of corona virus, is a potential anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. We hereby show the construction, preparation, and characterization of the fusion protein RBM-HFtn. Our initial affinity study confirmed its biological activity towards ACE2 receptor which suggests its mode of action against SARS-CoV-2 could be either through vaccine therapy or blocking the cellular entry of virus as antagonist of ACE2 receptor.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.25.115618: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Materials: Human ACE2 (his tag) (10108-H08H), ACE2 rabbit Antibody (10108-RP01), goat anti-Rabbit/HRP secondary antibody (SSA004, and SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV) and RBD of spike glycoprotein (mFC tag)(40592-V05H) were purchased from Sino Biological (Beijing,
    ACE2
    suggested: None
    anti-Rabbit/HRP
    suggested: None
    SSA004
    suggested: None
    SARS-CoV-2
    suggested: None
    2019-nCoV
    suggested: None
    40592-V05H
    suggested: None
    Secondary antibody/HRP (1:5000 dilution) in 5% BSA was incubated 37°C for 0.5 h followed by washing for three times.
    antibody/HRP
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.25.115618v2 on bioRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.25.115618v1 on bioRxiv