Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-20-2022

Identifier

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10230-y; PMCID: PMC9019795

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is a novel betacoronavirus that caused coronavirus disease 2019 and has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide. Novel coronavirus infections in humans have steadily become more common. Understanding antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2, and identifying conserved, cross-reactive epitopes among coronavirus strains could inform the design of vaccines and therapeutics with broad application. Here, we determined that individuals with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccine produced antibody responses that cross-reacted with related betacoronaviruses. Moreover, we designed a peptide-conjugate vaccine with a conserved SARS-CoV-2 S2 spike epitope, immunized mice and determined cross-reactive antibody binding to SARS-CoV-2 and other related coronaviruses. This conserved spike epitope also shared sequence homology to proteins in commensal gut microbiota and could prime immune responses in humans. Thus, SARS-CoV-2 conserved epitopes elicit cross-reactive immune responses to both related coronaviruses and host bacteria that could serve as future targets for broad coronavirus therapeutics and vaccines.

Journal Title

Sci Rep

Volume

12

Issue

1

First Page

6496

Last Page

6496

MeSH Keywords

Animals; Antibodies, Viral; BNT162 Vaccine; COVID-19; Epitopes; Humans; Mice; SARS-CoV-2; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus; Vaccination

Keywords

Animals; Antibodies, Viral; BNT162 Vaccine; COVID-19; Epitopes; Humans; Mice; SARS-CoV-2; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus; Vaccination

Comments

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Publisher's Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10230-y

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