A novel STING agonist-adjuvanted pan-sarbecovirus vaccine elicits potent and durable neutralizing antibody and T cell responses in mice,rabbits and NHPs
A novel STING agonist-adjuvanted pan-sarbecovirus vaccine elicits potent and durable neutralizing antibody and T cell responses in mice,rabbits and NHPs
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and potentially other highly pathogenic sarbecoviruses in the future highlights the need for pan-sarbecovirus vaccines.Here,we discovered a new STING agonist,CF501,and found that CF501-adjuvanted RBD-Fc vaccine(CF501/RBD-Fc)elicited significantly stronger neutralizing antibody(nAb)and T cell responses than Alum-and cGAMP-adjuvanted RBD-Fc in mice.Vaccination of rabbits and rhesus macaques(nonhuman primates,NHPs)with CF501/RBD-Fc elicited exceptionally potent nAb responses against SARS-CoV-2 and its nine variants and 41 S-mutants,SARS-CoV and bat SARSr-CoVs.CF501/RBD-Fc-immunized hACE2-transgenic mice were almost completely protected against SARS-CoV-2 challenge,even 6 months after the initial immunization.NHPs immunized with a single dose of CF501/RBD-Fc produced high titers of nAbs.The immunized macaques also exhibited durable humoral and cellular immune responses and showed remarkably reduced viral load in the upper and lower airways upon SARS-CoV-2 challenge even at 108 days post the final immunization.Thus,CF501/RBD-Fc can be further developed as a novel pan-sarbecovirus vaccine to combat current and future outbreaks of sarbecovirus diseases.
A novel STING agonist-adjuvanted pan-sarbecovirus vaccine elicits potent and durable neutralizing antibody and T cell responses in mice,rabbits and NHPs