Rational optimization of glycoprotein E (gE)-encoding mRNA for improved Varicella-zoster Virus mRNA vaccine development

Abstract

The past decades have seen increasingly rapid advances in the field of mRNA technology and its successful applications in prophylactic vaccine development [1,2]. Recently, we reported on the development of a novel Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) mRNA vaccine (named as ZOSAL) that contains mRNAs encoding for full-length gE immunogen (623 aa) encapsulated into a novel lipid nanoparticle (LNP) system [3]. In mice and rhesus macaques, ZOSAL induced superior virus-specific immunity over licensed subunit vaccine Shingrix, which potentiated the power of mRNA platform in next-generation VZV vaccine development [3].