DNA vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in rhesus macaques
View ORCID ProfileJingyou Yu1,*, View ORCID ProfileLisa H. Tostanoski1,*, View ORCID ProfileLauren Peter1,*, View ORCID ProfileNoe B. Mercado1,*, View ORCID ProfileKatherine McMahan1,*, View ORCID ProfileShant H. Mahrokhian1,*, View ORCID ProfileJoseph P. Nkolola1,*, View ORCID ProfileJinyan Liu1,*, Zhenfeng Li1,*, View ORCID ProfileAbishek Chandrashekar1,*, David R. Martinez2, View ORCID ProfileCarolin Loos3, View ORCID ProfileCaroline Atyeo3, View ORCID ProfileStephanie Fischinger3, View ORCID ProfileJohn S. Burke3, View ORCID ProfileMatthew D. Slein3, Yuezhou Chen4, View ORCID ProfileAdam Zuiani4, View ORCID ProfileFelipe J. N. Lelis4, Meghan Travers4, View ORCID ProfileShaghayegh Habibi4, View ORCID ProfileLaurent Pessaint5, View ORCID ProfileAlex Van Ry5, View ORCID ProfileKelvin Blade5, Renita Brown5, Anthony Cook5, View ORCID ProfileBrad Finneyfrock5, View ORCID ProfileAlan Dodson5, Elyse Teow5, Jason Velasco5, View ORCID ProfileRoland Zahn6, View ORCID ProfileFrank Wegmann6, View ORCID ProfileEsther A. Bondzie1, View ORCID ProfileGabriel Dagotto1, View ORCID ProfileMakda S. Gebre1, Xuan He1, View ORCID ProfileCatherine Jacob-Dolan1, Marinela Kirilova1, View ORCID ProfileNicole Kordana1, Zijin Lin1, View ORCID ProfileLori F. Maxfield1, Felix Nampanya1, View ORCID ProfileRamya Nityanandam1, View ORCID ProfileJohn D. Ventura1, View ORCID ProfileHuahua Wan1, View ORCID ProfileYongfei Cai7, View ORCID ProfileBing Chen7,8, View ORCID ProfileAaron G. Schmidt3,8, View ORCID ProfileDuane R. Wesemann4,8, View ORCID ProfileRalph S. Baric2, View ORCID ProfileGalit Alter3,8, View ORCID ProfileHanne Andersen5, View ORCID ProfileMark G. Lewis5, View ORCID ProfileDan H. Barouch1,3,8,†
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Science 20 May 2020:
eabc6284
DOI: 10.1126/science.abc6284
Abstract
The global COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has made the development of a vaccine a top biomedical priority. In this study, we developed a series of DNA vaccine candidates expressing different forms of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein and evaluated them in 35 rhesus macaques. Vaccinated animals developed humoral and cellular immune responses, including neutralizing antibody titers comparable to those found in convalescent humans and macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2. Following vaccination, all animals were challenged with SARS-CoV-2, and the vaccine encoding the full-length S protein resulted in >3.1 and >3.7 log10 reductions in median viral loads in bronchoalveolar lavage and nasal mucosa, respectively, as compared with sham controls. Vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibody titers correlated with protective efficacy, suggesting an immune correlate of protection. These data demonstrate vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in nonhuman primates.
