eLife (Jul 2022)

Modelling the response to vaccine in non-human primates to define SARS-CoV-2 mechanistic correlates of protection

  • Marie Alexandre,
  • Romain Marlin,
  • Mélanie Prague,
  • Severin Coleon,
  • Nidhal Kahlaoui,
  • Sylvain Cardinaud,
  • Thibaut Naninck,
  • Benoit Delache,
  • Mathieu Surenaud,
  • Mathilde Galhaut,
  • Nathalie Dereuddre-Bosquet,
  • Mariangela Cavarelli,
  • Pauline Maisonnasse,
  • Mireille Centlivre,
  • Christine Lacabaratz,
  • Aurelie Wiedemann,
  • Sandra Zurawski,
  • Gerard Zurawski,
  • Olivier Schwartz,
  • Rogier W Sanders,
  • Roger Le Grand,
  • Yves Levy,
  • Rodolphe Thiébaut

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75427
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

Read online

The definition of correlates of protection is critical for the development of next-generation SARS-CoV-2 vaccine platforms. Here, we propose a model-based approach for identifying mechanistic correlates of protection based on mathematical modelling of viral dynamics and data mining of immunological markers. The application to three different studies in non-human primates evaluating SARS-CoV-2 vaccines based on CD40-targeting, two-component spike nanoparticle and mRNA 1273 identifies and quantifies two main mechanisms that are a decrease of rate of cell infection and an increase in clearance of infected cells. Inhibition of RBD binding to ACE2 appears to be a robust mechanistic correlate of protection across the three vaccine platforms although not capturing the whole biological vaccine effect. The model shows that RBD/ACE2 binding inhibition represents a strong mechanism of protection which required significant reduction in blocking potency to effectively compromise the control of viral replication.

Keywords