A single vaccination of nucleoside-modified Rabies mRNA vaccine induces prolonged highly protective immune responses in mice
Shimeng Bai, Tianhan Yang, Cuisong Zhu, Meiqi Feng, Li Zhang, Ziling Zhang, Xiang Wang, Rui Yu, Xinghao Pan, Zhao Chen, Jianqing Xu, Xiaoyan Zhang
Abstract
Background: Rabies is a lethal zoonotic disease that kills approximately 60,000 people each year. Although inactivated rabies vaccines are available, multiple-dose regimensare recommended for pre-exposure prophylaxis or post-exposure prophylaxis,which cuts down the cost- and time-effectiveness, especially in low- and middle incomecountries. Methods: We developed a nucleoside-modified Rabies mRNA-lipid nanoparticle vaccine (RABV-G mRNA-LNP) encoding codon-optimized viral glycoprotein and assessed the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of this vaccine in mice comparing to a commercially available inactivated vaccine. Results: We first showed that, when evaluated in mice, a single vaccination of RABV-G mRNA with a moderate or high dose induces more potent humoral and T-cell immune responses than that elicited by three inoculations of the inactivated vaccine. Importantly, mice receiving a single immunization of RABV-G mRNA, even at low doses, showed full protection against the lethal rabies challenge. We further demonstrated that the humoral immune response induced by single RABV-G mRNA vaccination in mice could last for at least 25 weeks, while a two-dose strategy could extend the duration of the highly protective response to one year or even longer. In contrast, the three-dose regimen of inactivated vaccine failed to do so. Conclusion: Our study confirmed that it is worth developing a single-dose nucleoside-modified Rabies mRNA-LNP vaccine, which could confer much prolonged and more effective protection.