Dual spike and nucleocapsid mRNA vaccination confer protection against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants in preclinical models.

ABSTRACT: Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs), including the highly transmissible Omicron and Delta strains, has posed constant challenges to the current COVID-19 vaccines that principally target the viral spike protein (S). Here, we report a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine that expresses the more conserved viral nucleoprotein (mRNA-N) and show that mRNA-N vaccination alone can induce modest control of SARS-CoV-2. Critically, combining mRNA-N with the clinically proven S-expressing mRNA vaccine (mRNA-S+N) induced robust protection against both Delta and Omicron variants. In the hamster models of SARS-CoV-2 VOC challenge, we demonstrated that, compared to mRNA-S alone, combination mRNA-S+N vaccination not only induced more robust control of the Delta and Omicron varian

SUBMITTER: Hajnik RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9926941 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature