DNA vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in rhesus macaques
Jingyou Yu, Lisa H. Tostanoski, Lauren Peter, Noe B. Mercado, Katherine McMahan, Shant H. Mahrokhian, Joseph P. Nkolola, Jinyan Liu, Zhenfeng Li, Abishek Chandrashekar, David R. Martinez, Carolin Loos, Caroline Atyeo, Stephanie Fischinger, John S. Burke, Matthew D. Slein, Yuezhou Chen, Adam Zuiani, Felipe Lelis, Meghan Travers, Shaghayegh Habibi, Laurent Pessaint, Alex Van Ry, Kelvin Blade, Renita Brown, Anthony Cook, Brad Finneyfrock, Alan Dodson, Elyse Teow, Jason Velasco, Roland Zahn, Frank Wegmann, Esther A. Bondzie, Gabriel Dagotto, Makda S. Gebre, Xuan He, Catherine Jacob-Dolan, Marinela Kirilova, Nicole Kordana, Zijin Lin, Lori F. Maxfield, Felix Nampanya, Ramya Nityanandam, John D. Ventura, Huahua Wan, Yongfei Cai, Bing Chen, Aaron G. Schmidt, Duane R. Wesemann, Ralph S. Baric, Galit Alter, Hanné Andersen, Mark G. Lewis, Dan H. Barouch
Abstract
Prototype DNA vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 The development of a vaccine to protect against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an urgent biomedical need. Yu et al. designed a series of prototype DNA vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is used by the virus to bind and invade human cells. Analysis of the vaccine candidates in rhesus macaques showed that animals developed protective humoral and cellular immune responses when challenged with the virus. Neutralizing antibody titers were also observed at levels similar to those seen in humans who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Science , this issue p. 806