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(Piyal Bhattacharjee / BCCL Delhi)
Despite the number of vaccinated people around the world that has increased significantly in recent months, uncertainty remains about their ability to handle COVID-19 re-infections – especially those caused by variations and mutations of the new coronavirus. But now it appears that researchers have found a stone that kills all birds, in the form of a vaccine that provides protection against all coronaviruses.
Using an innovative approach, researchers Steven L. Zeichner of UVA Health and Xiang-Jin Meng of Virginia Tech developed what could one day become a universal vaccine for coronaviruses. This vaccine would not only fight all the current and future strains of COVID-19-SARS-CoV-2, but also the coronaviruses that had previously threatened epidemics or frequently caused colds.
How can a vaccine fight all coronaviruses?
The vaccine, created by Zeichner and Meng, follows an unusual approach in that it targets a part of the virus’ ear protein, called ‘viral fusion peptide’. This fusion peptide is essentially universal among coronaviruses; in fact, it did not change or differ at all in any of the genetic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 obtained from thousands of patients around the world. The ability of the vaccine to target this universal part is what is supposed to make it effective against all coronaviruses.
To test its efficacy, Meng and Zeichner developed two vaccines – one designed to protect against COVID-19 in humans, and another to protect against swine epidemic diarrhea vaccine (PEDV). Both of these diseases are caused by closely related coronaviruses, which share several of the amino acids that make up the fusion peptide.
Both of these vaccines were administered to different groups of pigs, and the subsequent analysis showed that the vaccine for PEDV as well as the vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 protects the pigs against the disease caused by PEDV. Although the vaccines could not completely prevent the infection, they successfully protected the pigs from severe symptoms. In addition, they also prepared the immune systems of the pigs to elicit a much more potent immune response to the infection.
Through these observations, scientists have concluded that if both PEDV and COVID-19 vaccines protect the pigs from diseases caused by PEDV and the immune system is fueled to fight the disease, it is reasonable to think that the COVID-19 vaccine will also protect people. against severe coronavirus infections.
Further benefits and future steps
Meng and Zeichner chose to study PEDV in pigs because it gives them the advantage of analyzing the performance of a vaccine against a coronavirus infection in its original host – in this case pigs. The other models used to test COVID-19 vaccines study SARS-CoV-2 in non-native hosts such as monkeys or hamsters. The fact that pigs are very similar to humans in physiology and immunology has made an advantage.
Although the early evidence demonstrates the efficacy of the vaccine against all coronaviruses, the researchers insist that additional tests and human trials will be required before the vaccine is approved for mass production and use.
In general, the vaccine development platform designed by Zeichner seems to have crossed all the right subjects, as the vaccine offers a new way to quickly produce vaccines in existing facilities around the world, and also at a very low cost. The vaccine can be manufactured easily and cheaply in mass production, as it is created using an existing, commonly used technique that involves the genetic modification of the common E. coli bacteria. Vaccines created using this method are referred to as killed whole-cell vaccines.
“Killed whole-cell vaccines are currently widely used to protect against deadly diseases such as cholera and whooping cough,” Zeichner explained. “Factories in many low- to middle-income countries around the world now earn hundreds of millions of doses of these vaccines a year, at $ 1 per dose or less. It is possible to adapt the factories to make this new vaccine. Since the technology is very much the same, the cost should be similar as well. ”
Furthermore, the entire process used to create vaccines – from identifying a potential vaccine target, to producing the gene-scraped bacteria that have the vaccine antigens on their surfaces – can take place in just two to three weeks, which making it ideal for responding to a pandemic.
The findings of this study, which are currently being peer-reviewed, were recently published in the scientific journal PNAS. They can be obtained here.
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