A Newcastle disease virus expressing a stabilized spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 induces protective immune responses
Weina Sun, Yonghong Liu, Fatima Amanat, Irene González‐Domínguez, Stephen McCroskery, Stefan Slamanig, Lynda Coughlan, Victoria Rosado, Nicholas Lemus, Sonia Jangra, Raveen Rathnasinghe, Michael Schotsaert, José Luis Martínez, Kaori Sano, Ignacio Mena, Bruce L. Innis, Ponthip Wirachwong, Duong Huu Thai, Ricardo das Neves Oliveira, Rami Scharf, Richard Hjorth, Rama Raghunandan, Florian Krammer, Adolfo García‐Sastre, Peter Palese
Abstract
Rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines has helped mitigating SARS-CoV-2 spread, but more equitable allocation of vaccines is necessary to limit the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of additional variants of concern. We have developed a COVID-19 vaccine candidate based on Newcastle disease virus (NDV) that can be manufactured at high yields in embryonated eggs. Here, we show that the NDV vector expressing an optimized spike antigen (NDV-HXP-S) is a versatile vaccine inducing protective antibody responses. NDV-HXP-S can be administered intramuscularly as inactivated vaccine or intranasally as live vaccine. We show that NDV-HXP-S GMP-produced in Vietnam, Thailand and Brazil is effective in the hamster model. Furthermore, we show that intramuscular vaccination with NDV-HXP-S reduces replication of tested variants of concerns in mice. The immunity conferred by NDV-HXP-S effectively counteracts SARS-CoV-2 infection in mice and hamsters.