Circular RNA vaccines against monkeypox virus provide potent protection against vaccinia virus infection in mice

Jinge Zhou; Tianxi Ye; Yun Yang; Entao Li; Kaiyue Zhang; Yuping Wang; Shaohong Chen; Jiang Hu; Kai Zhang; Fang Liu; Rui Gong; Xia Chuai; Zefeng Wang; Sandra Chiu

doi:10.1016/j.ymthe.2024.04.028

Circular RNA vaccines against monkeypox virus provide potent protection against vaccinia virus infection in mice

Mol Ther. 2024 Apr 24:S1525-0016(24)00251-X. doi: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2024.04.028. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jinge Zhou¹, Tianxi Ye¹, Yun Yang², Entao Li³, Kaiyue Zhang⁴, Yuping Wang⁴, Shaohong Chen¹, Jiang Hu², Kai Zhang², Fang Liu², Rui Gong⁵, Xia Chuai⁶, Zefeng Wang⁷, Sandra Chiu⁸

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430207, Hubei, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
² Research and Development Department, Shanghai CirCode Biomedicine Co. Ltd, Shanghai 200131, China.
³ Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, Anhui, China; Key Laboratory of Anhui Province for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Hefei 230027, Anhui, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430207, Hubei, China.
⁵ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430207, Hubei, China; Hubei Jiangxia Laboratory, Wuhan 430200, Hubei, China. Electronic address: gongr@wh.iov.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430207, Hubei, China. Electronic address: chuaixia@wh.iov.cn.
⁷ Research and Development Department, Shanghai CirCode Biomedicine Co. Ltd, Shanghai 200131, China; School of Life Science, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China. Electronic address: wangzefeng@picb.ac.cn.
⁸ Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, Anhui, China; Key Laboratory of Anhui Province for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Hefei 230027, Anhui, China. Electronic address: qiux@ustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 38659224
DOI: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2024.04.028

Abstract

Since the outbreak of monkeypox (mpox) in 2022, widespread concern has been placed on imposing an urgent demand for specific vaccines that offer safer and more effective protection. Using an efficient and scalable circular RNA (circRNA) platform, we constructed four circRNA vaccines that could induce robust neutralizing antibodies as well as T cell responses by expressing different surface proteins of mpox virus (MPXV), resulting in potent protection against vaccinia virus (VACV) in mice. Strikingly, the combination of the four circular RNA vaccines demonstrated the best protection against VACV challenge among all the tested vaccines. Our study provides a favorable approach for developing MPXV-specific vaccines by using a circular mRNA platform and opens up novel avenues for future vaccine research.

Keywords: circular RNA vaccines; immune responses; mice; monkeypox virus; protection.