Novel sialoglycan linkage for constructing adjuvant-protein conjugate as potent vaccine for COVID-19

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2023.01.062
• Publication Date: 2023-02-08T20:37:23Z
• Authors: Yu Wen; Ru-Yan Zhang; Jian Wang; Shi-Hao Zhou; Xiao-Qian Peng; Dong Ding; Zhi-Ming Zhang; Hua-Wei Wei; Jun Guo
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Epitopes; 03 medical and health sciences; COVID-19 Vaccines; Adjuvants, Immunologic; SARS-CoV-2; Humans; COVID-19; Antigens; Article; 3. Good health; Adjuvants, Pharmaceutic

Self-adjuvanting protein vaccines have been proved to be highly immunogenic with efficient codelivery of adjuvant and antigen. Current protein vaccines with built-in adjuvants are all modified at the peptide backbone of antigen protein, which could not achieve minor epitope interference and adjuvant multivalency at the same time. Herein, we developed a new conjugate strategy to construct effective adjuvant-protein vaccine with adjuvant cluster effect and minimal epitope interference. The toll-like receptor 7 agonist (TLR7a) is covalently conjugated on the terminal sialoglycans of SARS-CoV-2-S1 protein, leading to intracellular release of the small-molecule stimulators with greatly reduced risks of systemic toxicity. The resulting TLR7a-S1 conjugate elicited strong activation of immune cells in vitro, and potent antibody and cellular responses with a significantly enhanced Th1-bias in vivo. TLR7a-S1-induced antibody also effectively cross-neutralized all variants of concern. This sialoglycoconjugation approach to construct protein conjugate vaccines will have more applications to combat SARS-CoV-2 and other diseases.