Metabolomics acts as a powerful tool for comprehensively evaluating vaccines approved under emergency: a CoronaVac retrospective study

Xinyu Liu; Congshu Xiao; Pengwei Guan; Qianqian Chen; Lei You; Hongwei Kong; Wangshu Qin; Peng Dou; Qi Li; Yanju Li; Ying Jiao; Zhiwei Zhong; Jun Yang; Xiaolin Wang; Qingqing Wang; Jinhui Zhao; Zhiliang Xu; Hong Zhang; Rongkuan Li; Peng Gao; Guowang Xu

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2023.1168308

Metabolomics acts as a powerful tool for comprehensively evaluating vaccines approved under emergency: a CoronaVac retrospective study

Front Immunol. 2023 Jul 14:14:1168308. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1168308. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Xinyu Liu^{1

2}, Congshu Xiao³, Pengwei Guan^{1

2

4}, Qianqian Chen^{1

2}, Lei You^{1

2

4}, Hongwei Kong⁵, Wangshu Qin^{1

2}, Peng Dou^{1

2}, Qi Li^{1

2}, Yanju Li⁶, Ying Jiao⁷, Zhiwei Zhong³, Jun Yang^{1

2

4}, Xiaolin Wang^{1

2}, Qingqing Wang^{1

2

4}, Jinhui Zhao^{1

2

4}, Zhiliang Xu⁵, Hong Zhang⁸, Rongkuan Li³, Peng Gao^{9

10}, Guowang Xu^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China.
² Liaoning Province Key Laboratory of Metabolomics, Dalian, China.
³ Department of Infection, The Second Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
⁴ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Hangzhou Health-Bank Medical Laboratory Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China.
⁶ Clinical laboratory, Affiliated Dalian Hospital of Shengjing Hospital of Chinese Medical University, Dalian, China.
⁷ Nursing Department, Anshan Infectious Disease Hospital, Anshan, China.
⁸ Internal Department, Women and Children's Hospital of Anshan City, Anshan, China.
⁹ Clinical laboratory, The Second Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
¹⁰ Shanghai Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Technologies, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Introduction: To control the COVID-19 pandemic, great efforts have been made to realize herd immunity by vaccination since 2020. Unfortunately, most of the vaccines against COVID-19 were approved in emergency without a full-cycle and comprehensive evaluation process as recommended to the previous vaccines. Metabolome has a close tie with the phenotype and can sensitively reflect the responses to stimuli, rendering metabolomic analysis have the potential to appraise and monitor vaccine effects authentically.

Methods: In this study, a retrospective study was carried out for 330 Chinese volunteers receiving recommended two-dose CoronaVac, a vaccine approved in emergency in 2020. Venous blood was sampled before and after vaccination at 5 separate time points for all the recipients. Routine clinical laboratory analysis, metabolomic and lipidomic analysis data were collected.

Results and discussion: It was found that the serum antibody-positive rate of this population was around 81.82%. Most of the laboratory parameters were slightly perturbated within the relevant reference intervals after vaccination. The metabolomic and lipidomic analyses showed that the metabolic shift after inoculation was mainly in the glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid cycle, amino acid metabolism, urea cycle, as well as microbe-related metabolism (bile acid metabolism, tryptophan metabolism and phenylalanine metabolism). Time-course metabolome changes were found in parallel with the progress of immunity establishment and peripheral immune cell counting fluctuation, proving metabolomics analysis was an applicable solution to evaluate immune effects complementary to traditional antibody detection. Taurocholic acid, lysophosphatidylcholine 16:0 sn-1, glutamic acid, and phenylalanine were defined as valuable metabolite markers to indicate the establishment of immunity after vaccination. Integrated with the traditional laboratory analysis, this study provided a feasible metabolomics-based solution to relatively comprehensively evaluate vaccines approved under emergency.

Keywords: COVID-19; CoronaVac; immune response; lipidomics; metabolomics; vaccine.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19 Vaccines
COVID-19* / prevention & control
Humans
Metabolomics
Pandemics
Retrospective Studies
Vaccines*

Substances

sinovac COVID-19 vaccine
COVID-19 Vaccines
Vaccines

Grants and funding

The study was sponsored by the Key Foundation (21934006) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the foundation from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2021186), the Innovation program (DICP ZZBS201804) of Science and Research from the DICP.