Cleveland Clinic Florida Research and Innovation Center, Port St. Lucie, FL, USA.
Department of Infection Biology, Lehner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
Vaccine. 2024 Feb 15;42(5):1184-1192. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.12.084. Epub 2024 Jan 30.
SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza viruses are both highly transmissible airborne viruses and causing high morbidity and mortality. Co-infection of these two viruses results in severe disease that have been observed when influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses cocirculated in the past three years, and vaccination is still the effective way to prevent these two diseases. However, influenza and COVID-19 vaccines are designed and manufactured in different platforms, all the individuals will need to get two shots in order to prevent those two severe respiratory diseases. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a Flu-COVID combo vaccine to provide an efficient way for receiving immunization against those two diseases. In this study, we developed a flu-COVID combo vaccine that includes both influenza virus haemagglutinin (HA) proteins and SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein which formulated with AddaVax. K18-hACE-2 transgenic mice were intramuscularly vaccinated with either combo vaccine or mono Flu (HA) or COVID (S) recombinant protein vaccine in a prime-boost-boost regimen, and then were challenged with lethal doses of influenza virus or SARS-CoV-2 to evaluate vaccine efficacy. The results showed that Flu-COVID combo vaccine protected mice from both Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 challenge by preventing body weight loss and clinical signs progression. The protective immune responses elicited by Flu-COVID combo vaccine were equivalent to those elicited by mono flu or COVID recombinant protein vaccines. In conclusion, our study highlights the effectiveness of the FLU-COVID combo recombinant protein vaccine in preventing both influenza and COVID-19 infections.
SARS-CoV-2 和流感病毒都是高度传染性的空气传播病毒，会导致高发病率和死亡率。这两种病毒的合并感染会导致严重疾病，过去三年中流感和 SARS-CoV-2 病毒同时流行时就观察到了这种情况，疫苗接种仍然是预防这两种疾病的有效方法。然而，流感和 COVID-19 疫苗是在不同的平台上设计和制造的，为了预防这两种严重的呼吸道疾病，所有个体都需要接种两针。因此，迫切需要开发一种 Flu-COVID 联合疫苗，为接种这两种疾病提供有效的途径。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种 Flu-COVID 联合疫苗，该疫苗包含流感病毒血凝素 (HA) 蛋白和 SARS-CoV-2 刺突 (S) 蛋白，并用 AddaVax 配制。K18-hACE-2 转基因小鼠采用肌内注射的方式，按照初免-加强-再加强的方案接种联合疫苗或单价流感（HA）或 COVID（S）重组蛋白疫苗，然后用致死剂量的流感病毒或 SARS-CoV-2 进行攻毒，以评估疫苗的效力。结果表明，Flu-COVID 联合疫苗通过预防体重减轻和临床症状进展，保护小鼠免受流感和 SARS-CoV-2 的攻击。Flu-COVID 联合疫苗诱导的保护性免疫应答与单价流感或 COVID 重组蛋白疫苗诱导的应答相当。总之，我们的研究强调了 FLU-COVID 联合重组蛋白疫苗在预防流感和 COVID-19 感染方面的有效性。
