Production and Characterization of Nucleocapsid and RBD Cocktail Antigens of SARS-CoV-2 in Nicotiana benthamiana Plant as a Vaccine Candidate against COVID-19


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Mamedov T., Yuksel D., Ilgın M., Gürbüzaslan I., Gulec B., Mammadova G., ...Daha Fazla

VACCINES, cilt.9, sa.11, 2021 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 9 Sayı: 11
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.3390/vaccines9111337
  • Dergi Adı: VACCINES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, BIOSIS, EMBASE, Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, nucleocapsid protein, RBD of SARS-CoV-2, plant, transient expression system, RECEPTOR-BINDING DOMAIN, CORONAVIRUS, ANAPHYLAXIS, EXPRESSION, RESPONSES, PROTEINS, TARGETS, VIVO
  • Erciyes Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The COVID-19 pandemic has put global public health at high risk, rapidly spreading around the world. Although several COVID-19 vaccines are available for mass immunization, the world still urgently needs highly effective, reliable, cost-effective, and safe SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccines, as well as antiviral and therapeutic drugs, to control the COVID-19 pandemic given the emerging variant strains of the virus. Recently, we successfully produced receptor-binding domain (RBD) variants in the Nicotiana benthamiana plant as promising vaccine candidates against COVID-19 and demonstrated that mice immunized with these antigens elicited a high titer of RBD-specific antibodies with potent neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we engineered the nucleocapsid (N) protein and co-expressed it with RBD of SARS-CoV-2 in Nicotiana benthamiana plant to produce an antigen cocktail. The purification yields were about 22 or 24 mg of pure protein/kg of plant biomass for N or N+RBD antigens, respectively. The purified plant produced N protein was recognized by N protein-specific monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies demonstrating specific reactivity of mAb to plant-produced N protein. In this study, for the first time, we report the co-expression of RBD with N protein to produce a cocktail antigen of SARS-CoV-2, which elicited high-titer antibodies with potent neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, obtained data support that a plant-produced antigen cocktail, developed in this study, is a promising vaccine candidate against COVID-19.