A Combination Adjuvant for the Induction of Potent Antiviral Immune Responses for a Recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Protein Vaccine

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Abstract

Several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have received EUAs, but many issues remain unresolved, including duration of conferred immunity and breadth of cross-protection. Adjuvants that enhance and shape adaptive immune responses that confer broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants will be pivotal for long-term protection as drift variants continue to emerge. We developed an intranasal, rationally designed adjuvant integrating a nanoemulsion (NE) that activates TLRs and NLRP3 with an RNA agonist of RIG-I (IVT DI). The combination adjuvant with spike protein antigen elicited robust responses to SARS-CoV-2 in mice, with markedly enhanced T H 1-biased cellular responses and high virus-neutralizing antibody titers towards both homologous SARS-CoV-2 and a variant harboring the N501Y mutation shared by B1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1 variants. Furthermore, passive transfer of vaccination-induced antibodies protected naive mice against heterologous viral challenge. NE/IVT DI enables mucosal vaccination, and has the potential to improve the immune profile of a variety of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates to provide effective cross-protection against future drift variants.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.18.431484: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: Animals: All animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) at the University of Michigan and Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and were carried out in accordance with these guidelines. 6-8-week-old female C57Bl/6 mice (Charles River Laboratories) were housed in specific pathogen-free conditions.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableAnimals: All animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) at the University of Michigan and Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and were carried out in accordance with these guidelines. 6-8-week-old female C57Bl/6 mice (Charles River Laboratories) were housed in specific pathogen-free conditions.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Plates were washed three times with PBST (0.05% Tween20), and alkaline phosphatase conjugated secondary antibodies were added (goat-anti-mouse IgG, IgG1, IgG2b, or IgG2c Jackson Immuno Research Laboratories) diluted in PBS/0.1%BSA.
    IgG, IgG1
    suggested: None
    Cells were permeabilized with 0.1% TritonX100, washed and incubated with anti-SARS-CoV-2-nucleoprotein and anti-SARS-CoV-2-Spike monoclonal antibodies, mixed in 1:1 ratio, for 1.5h at RT.
    anti-SARS-CoV-2-nucleoprotein
    suggested: None
    anti-SARS-CoV-2-Spike
    suggested: None
    After another wash, cells were incubated with HRP-conjugated goat-anti-mouse IgG secondary antibody for 1h at RT.
    IgG
    suggested: None
    Anti-mouse SARS-CoV-2-nucleoprotein and anti-mouse SARS-CoV-2-spike antibodies were obtained from the Center for Therapeutic Antibody Development at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
    Anti-mouse SARS-CoV-2-nucleoprotein
    suggested: None
    anti-mouse SARS-CoV-2-spike
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Briefly, SeV DI RNA from SeV-infected A549 cells was amplified using a 5’ primer with the T7 promoter and a 3’ primer with the hepatitis delta virus genomic ribozyme site followed by the T7 terminator.
    A549
    suggested: NCI-DTP Cat# A549, RRID:CVCL_0023)
    HEK293T cells expressing human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (293T-hACE2) were obtained from BEI resources and maintained in HEK293T medium: DMEM containing 4 mM L-glutamine, 4500 mg/L L-glucose, 1 mM sodium pyruvate and 1500 mg/L sodium bicarbonate, supplemented with 10% heat inactivated fetal bovine serum as previously described48.
    HEK293T
    suggested: ATCC Cat# ACS-4500, RRID:CVCL_4V93)
    Viruses: WT SARS-CoV-2: SARS-CoV-2 clinical isolate USA-WA1/2020 (BEI resources; NR-52281), was propagated by culture in Vero E6 cells as previously described (ref).
    Vero E6
    suggested: RRID:CVCL_XD71)
    This DNA/PEI containing media was then distributed equally to 5-T150 flasks (Falcon) containing 293T cells.
    293T
    suggested: NCBI_Iran Cat# C498, RRID:CVCL_0063)
    Pseudovirus microneutralization (MNT) assays: 9×103 293T-hACE2 cells were seeded overnight on white clear bottom 96-well tissue culture plates in HEK293T medium.
    293T-hACE2
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains
    SentencesResources
    Animals: All animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) at the University of Michigan and Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and were carried out in accordance with these guidelines. 6-8-week-old female C57Bl/6 mice (Charles River Laboratories) were housed in specific pathogen-free conditions.
    C57Bl/6
    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.
    • 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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.