During the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of prophylactic vaccines, including those based on new platforms, became highly relevant. One such platform is the creation of vaccines combining DNA and protein components in one construct. For the creation of DNA vaccine, we chose the full-length spike protein (S) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and used the recombinant receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the S protein produced in CHO-K1 cells as a protein component. The immunogenicity of the developed combined vaccine and its individual components was compared and the contribution of each component to the induction of the immune response was analyzed. The combined DNA/protein vaccine possesses the advantages of both underlying approaches and is capable of inducing both humoral (similar to subunit vaccines) and cellular (similar to DNA vaccines) immunity.
Keywords: DNA vaccines; DNA/protein vaccines; SARS-CoV-2; immune response; subunit vaccines.
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