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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.07.30.229120

A Newcastle disease virus (NDV) expressing membrane-anchored spike as a cost-effective inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine

Sun, W.·McCroskery, S.·Liu, W.-C.·Leist, S. R.·Liu, Y.·Albrecht, R. A.·Slamanig, S.·Oliva, J.·Amanat, F.·Schaefer, A.·Dinnon, K. H.·Innis, B. L.·Garcia-Sastre, A.·Krammer, F.·Baric, R. S.·Palese, P.
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Abstract

A successful SARS-CoV-2 vaccine must be not only safe and protective but must also meet the demand on a global scale at low cost. Using the current influenza virus vaccine production capacity to manufacture an egg-based inactivated Newcastle disease virus (NDV)/SARS-CoV-2 vaccine would meet that challenge. Here, we report pre-clinical evaluations of an inactivated NDV chimera stably expressing the membrane-anchored form of the spike (NDV-S) as a potent COVID-19 vaccine in mice and hamsters. The inactivated NDV-S vaccine was immunogenic, inducing strong binding and/or neutralizing antibodies in both animal models. More importantly, the inactivated NDV-S vaccine protected animals from SARS-CoV-2 infections or significantly attenuated SARS-CoV-2 induced disease. In the presence of an adjuvant, antigen-sparing could be achieved, which would further reduce the cost while maintaining the protective efficacy of the vaccine.

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Sun, W., McCroskery, S., Liu, W.-C., Leist, S. R., Liu, Y., Albrecht, R. A., Slamanig, S., Oliva, J., Amanat, F., Schaefer, A., Dinnon, K. H., Innis, B. L., Garcia-Sastre, A., Krammer, F., Baric, R. S., Palese, P.. 2020-07-31. A Newcastle disease virus (NDV) expressing membrane-anchored spike as a cost-effective inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.30.229120

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