Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (Feb 2022)

Three doses of prototypic SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccine induce cross-protection against its variants of concern

  • Tianhong Xie,
  • Shuaiyao Lu,
  • Zhanlong He,
  • Hongqi Liu,
  • Junbin Wang,
  • Cong Tang,
  • Ting Yang,
  • Wenhai Yu,
  • Hua Li,
  • Yun Yang,
  • Hao Yang,
  • Lei Yue,
  • Yanan Zhou,
  • Fengmei Yang,
  • Zhiwu Luo,
  • Yanyan Li,
  • Hong Xiang,
  • Yuan Zhao,
  • Jie Wang,
  • Haixuan Wang,
  • Runxiang Long,
  • Dexuan Kuang,
  • Wenjie Tan,
  • Xiaozhong Peng,
  • Qihan Li,
  • Zhongping Xie

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-022-00920-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Abstract Variants are globally emerging very quickly following pandemic prototypic SARS-CoV-2. To evaluate the cross-protection of prototypic SARS-CoV-2 vaccine against its variants, we vaccinated rhesus monkeys with three doses of prototypic SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccine, followed by challenging with emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs). These vaccinated animals produced neutralizing antibodies against Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants, although there were certain declinations of geometric mean titer (GMT) as compared with prototypic SARS-CoV-2. Of note, in vivo this prototypic vaccine not only reduced the viral loads in nasal, throat and anal swabs, pulmonary tissues, but also improved the pathological changes in the lung infected by variants of Alpha, Beta, and Delta. In summary, the prototypic SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccine in this study protected against VOCs to certain extension, which is of great significance for prevention and control of COVID-19.