Extensive neutralization against SARS-CoV-2 variants elicited by Omicron-specific subunit vaccine booster

  1. Pai Peng
  2. Chengqian Feng
  3. Jie Hu
  4. Chang-long He
  5. Hai-jun Deng
  6. Qinghong Fan
  7. Jin Xiang
  8. Guofang Tang
  9. Mengling Jiang
  10. Fengyu Hu
  11. Feng Li
  12. Kai Wang
  13. Ni Tang
  14. Xiaoping Tang
  15. Ai-long Huang

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Abstract

The currently dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron, carrying a great number of mutations, has been verified its strong capacity of immune escape in COVID-19 convalescents and vaccinated individuals. An increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection or breakthrough infection should be concerned. Here we reported higher humoral immune response elicited by Delta and Omicron variants after breaking through previous infection and cross-neutralization against VOCs, compared to the ancestral wild-type (WT) virus infection. To overcome the immune escape of Omicron, Omicron-specific vaccine was considered as a novel and potential strategy. Mouse models were used to verify whether Omicron-specific RBD subunit boost immune response by immunizing Omicron-RBD recombinant proteins. Three doses of Omicron-RBD immunization elicit comparable neutralizing antibody (NAb) titers with three doses of WT-RBD immunization, but the neutralizing activity was not cross-active. By contrast, two doses of WT-RBD with an Omicron-RBD booster increased the NAb geometric mean titers against Omicron by 9 folds. Moreover, an additional boost vaccination with Omicron-RBD protein could increase humoral immune response against both WT and current VOCs. These results suggest that the Omicron-specific subunit booster shows its advantages in the immune protection from both WT and current VOCs, and that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines administration using two or more virus lineages as antigens might improve the NAb response.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.07.483373v2 on bioRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.07.483373: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: The collection of all samples obtained the consent from subjects according to the protocols approved by the Ethics Review Board of the Eighth People’s Hospital of Guangzhou Institutional Review Board. plasma was isolated from blood samples within 2h after collection according to the following steps: (1) Patient sera were heat incubated for inactivation at 56 °C in water bath for 30 min.; (2) centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 15 min, followed by transferring to new tubes; (3) Store at -80°C for further use.
    IRB: The collection of all samples obtained the consent from subjects according to the protocols approved by the Ethics Review Board of the Eighth People’s Hospital of Guangzhou Institutional Review Board. plasma was isolated from blood samples within 2h after collection according to the following steps: (1) Patient sera were heat incubated for inactivation at 56 °C in water bath for 30 min.; (2) centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 15 min, followed by transferring to new tubes; (3) Store at -80°C for further use.
    IACUC: Ethics statement: Animal studies were approved by and conducted in compliance with the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the Laboratory Animal Center of Chongqing Medical University.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains
    SentencesResources
    Mouse models and study design: 8-week-old female BALB/c mice (6 mice per group) were provided by the Laboratory Animal Center of Chongqing Medical University (SCXK (YU) 2018-0003).
    BALB/c
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Neutralization inhibition rate was calculated using GraphPad Prism 8.0 software (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA).
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)
    GraphPad
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    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.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.07.483373v1 on bioRxiv