Engineering a dual vaccine against COVID-19 and tuberculosis

Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Yong Cheng¹  Xuejuan Tan¹  Ashton Elisabeth Self¹  Amber Cherry Meeker¹  Carlyn Monèt Guthrie¹  Lin Liu² 

[1] Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States;Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States;Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States;Department of Physiological Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States;

关键词: COVID-19;    tuberculosis;    Mycobacterium bovis;    dual vaccine;    mice;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fcimb.2023.1273019

 received in 2023-08-05, accepted in 2023-10-12,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus, has been one of the top public health threats across the world over the past three years. Mycobacterium bovis BCG is currently the only licensed vaccine for tuberculosis, one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world, that is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In the past decades, recombinant M.bovis BCG has been studied as a novel vaccine vector for other infectious diseases in humans besides tuberculosis, such as viral infections. In the current study, we generated a recombinant M. bovis BCG strain AspikeRBD that expresses a fusion protein consisting of M. tb Ag85A protein and the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein using synthetic biology technique. Our results show that the recombinant M. bovis BCG strain successfully expressed this fusion protein. Interestingly, the recombinant M. bovis BCG strain AspikeRBD significantly induced SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific T cell activation and IgG production in mice when compared to the parental M.bovis BCG strain, and was more potent than the recombinant M.bovis BCG strain expressing SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD alone. As expected, the recombinant M. bovis BCG strain AspikeRBD activated an increased number of M. tb Ag85A-specific IFNγ-releasing T cells and enhanced IgG production in mice when compared to the parental M.bovis BCG strain or the BCG strain expressing SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD alone. Taken together, our results indicate a potential application of the recombinant M. bovis BCG strain AspikeRBD as a novel dual vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 and M. tb in humans.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Guthrie, Tan, Meeker, Self, Liu and Cheng