A micro-electroporation/electrophoresis-based vaccine screening system reveals the impact of vaccination orders on cross-protective immunity

Yongyong Li; Jingshan Mo; Jing Liu; Ying Liang; Caiguanxi Deng; Zhangping Huang; Juan Jiang; Ming Liu; Xinmin Liu; Liru Shang; Xiafeng Wang; Xi Xie; Ji Wang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.108086

A micro-electroporation/electrophoresis-based vaccine screening system reveals the impact of vaccination orders on cross-protective immunity

iScience. 2023 Sep 28;26(10):108086. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108086. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.

Authors

Yongyong Li¹, Jingshan Mo^{2

3}, Jing Liu¹, Ying Liang⁴, Caiguanxi Deng¹, Zhangping Huang¹, Juan Jiang¹, Ming Liu¹, Xinmin Liu¹, Liru Shang¹, Xiafeng Wang¹, Xi Xie², Ji Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Institute of Precision Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Institute of Respiratory Diseases of Sun Yat-sen University, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, Peoples Republic of China.
² State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, People's Republic of China.
³ School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524088, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Department of Nephrology, GuangZhou Eighth People's Hospital, GuangZhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510060, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

The constant emergence of mutated pathogens poses great challenges to the existing vaccine system. A screening system is needed to screen for antigen designs and vaccination strategies capable of inducing cross-protective immunity. Herein, we report a screening system based on DNA vaccines and a micro-electroporation/electrophoresis system (MEES), which greatly improved the efficacy of DNA vaccines, elevating humoral and cellular immune responses by over 400- and 35-fold respectively. Eighteen vaccination strategies were screened simultaneously by sequential immunization with vaccines derived from wildtype (WT) SARS-CoV-2, Delta, or Omicron BA.1 variant. Sequential vaccination of BA.1-WT-Delta vaccines with MEES induced potent neutralizing antibodies against all three viral strains and BA.5 variant, demonstrating that cross-protective immunity against future mutants can be successfully induced by existing strain-derived vaccines when a proper combination and order of sequential vaccination are used. Our screening system could be used for fast-seeking vaccination strategies for emerging pathogens in the future.

Keywords: Computational molecular modelling; Immune response; Immunology.