Immunity elicited by natural infection or Ad26.COV2.S vaccination protects hamsters against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern
Lisa H. Tostanoski, Jingyou Yu, Noe B. Mercado, Katherine McMahan, Catherine Jacob-Dolan, Amanda J. Martinot, César Piedra-Mora, Tochi Anioke, Aiquan Chang, Victoria Giffin, David Hope, Huahua Wan, Esther A. Bondzie, Shant H. Mahrokhian, Linda M. Wrijil, Katherine Bauer, Laurent Pessaint, Maciel Porto, Joseph Piegols, Andrew Faudree, Brittany Spence, Swagata Kar, Fatima Amanat, Florian Krammer, Hanné Andersen, Mark G. Lewis, Frank Wegmann, Roland Zahn, Hanneke Schuitemaker, Dan H. Barouch
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern have emerged and may pose a threat to both the efficacy of vaccines based on the original WA1/2020 strain and the natural immunity induced by infection with earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants. We investigated how mutations in the spike protein of circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, which have been shown to partially evade neutralizing antibodies, affect natural and vaccine-induced immunity. We adapted a Syrian hamster model of moderate to severe clinical disease for two variant strains of SARS-CoV-2: B.1.1.7 (alpha variant) and B.1.351 (beta variant). We then assessed the protective efficacy conferred by either natural immunity from WA1/2020 infection or by vaccination with a single dose of the adenovirus serotype 26 vaccine, Ad26.COV2.S. Primary infection with the WA1/2020 strain provided potent protection against weight loss and viral replication in lungs after rechallenge with WA1/2020, B.1.1.7, or B.1.351. Ad26.COV2.S induced cross-reactive binding and neutralizing antibodies that were reduced against the B.1.351 strain compared with WA1/2020 but nevertheless still provided robust protection against B.1.351 challenge, as measured by weight loss and pathology scoring in the lungs. Together, these data support hamsters as a preclinical model to study protection against emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 conferred by prior infection or vaccination.