State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, National Institute of Diagnostics and Vaccine Development in Infectious Diseases, School of Life Sciences, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
Department of Pulmonary Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
Front Immunol. 2022 Sep 20;13:952650. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.952650. eCollection 2022.
Given pandemic risks of zoonotic SARS-CoV-2 variants and other SARS-like coronaviruses in the future, it is valuable to perform studies on conserved antigenic sites to design universal SARS-like coronavirus vaccines. By using antibodies obtained from convalescent COVID-19 patients, we succeeded in functional comparison of conserved antigenic sites at multiple aspects with each other, and even with SARS-CoV-2 unique antigenic sites, which promotes the cognition of process of humoral immune response to the conserved antigenic sites. The conserved antigenic sites between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV can effectively induce affinity maturation of cross-binding antibodies, finally resulting in broadly neutralizing antibodies against multiple variants of concern, which provides an important basis for universal vaccine design, however they are subdominant, putatively due to their lower accessibility relative to SARS-CoV-2 unique antigenic sites. Furthermore, we preliminarily design RBDs to improve the immunogenicity of these conserved antigenic sites. Our study focusing on conserved antigenic sites provides insights for promoting the development of universal SARS-like coronavirus vaccines, thereby enhancing our pandemic preparedness.
鉴于未来动物源性 SARS-CoV-2 变异株和其他 SARS 样冠状病毒的大流行风险,研究保守抗原表位以设计通用 SARS 样冠状病毒疫苗具有重要价值。通过使用从 COVID-19 恢复期患者获得的抗体,我们成功地从多个方面对保守抗原表位进行了功能比较,甚至与 SARS-CoV-2 独特的抗原表位进行了比较,这促进了对保守抗原表位体液免疫反应过程的认识。SARS-CoV-2 和 SARS-CoV 之间的保守抗原表位可以有效地诱导交叉结合抗体的亲和力成熟,最终产生针对多种关注变异株的广泛中和抗体,这为通用疫苗设计提供了重要依据,然而,这些保守抗原表位是次要的,推测是由于它们的可及性相对 SARS-CoV-2 独特的抗原表位较低。此外,我们初步设计了 RBD 来提高这些保守抗原表位的免疫原性。我们对保守抗原表位的研究为促进通用 SARS 样冠状病毒疫苗的发展提供了思路,从而增强了我们的大流行准备。