Development of an RBD-Fc fusion vaccine for COVID-19

Yisheng Sun; Qiaomin Li; Yuanyuan Luo; Hanping Zhu; Fang Xu; Hangjing Lu; Pingping Yao; Zhen Wang; Wenbin Zhao; Zhan Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.jvacx.2024.100444

Development of an RBD-Fc fusion vaccine for COVID-19

Vaccine X. 2024 Jan 21:16:100444. doi: 10.1016/j.jvacx.2024.100444. eCollection 2024 Jan.

Authors

Yisheng Sun^{1

2}, Qiaomin Li¹, Yuanyuan Luo¹, Hanping Zhu², Fang Xu², Hangjing Lu², Pingping Yao², Zhen Wang², Wenbin Zhao¹, Zhan Zhou^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Anti-Cancer Drug Research, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
² Key Lab of Vaccine, Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou 310015, China.
³ The Fourth Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Yiwu, 322000, China.

Abstract

Although the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 has passed, there are still regional outbreaks that continue to jeopardize human health. Hence, there is still a great deal of interest in developing an efficient vaccine that can quickly and effectively prevent reemerging outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2. Delta variant was once a dominant strain in the world in 2021, and we first constructed a recombinant RBD_delta-Fc fusion vaccine by coupling the RBD of Delta variant with the human Fc fragment. This Fc fusion strategy increases the immunogenicity of the recombinant RBD vaccine, with a long-lasting high level of IgG antibodies and neutralizing antibodies induced by RBD_delta-Fc vaccine. This RBD_delta-Fc vaccine, as well as the RBD-Fc vaccine prepared in our previously study, could trigger a durable immune effect by the heterologous boosting immunity, and the RBD-Fc induced a quicker humoral immune response than the homologous immunization with inactivated vaccines. In conclusion, the Fc fusion strategy has a significant role in enhancing the immunogenicity of recombinant protein vaccines, thus promising the development of a safe and efficient vaccine for the heterologous boosting against SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: Delta variant; Fc fusion; Heterologous; RBD; SARS-CoV-2.