Z. Ao, J. Ouyang, T. Olukitibi, K.R. Fowke, D. Kobasa, and X. Yao
University of Manitoba, MB, Canada
Keywords: Vaccine technology, SARAS-CoV-2, influenza, H5N1,
SARS-CoV-2 and influenza are both highly contagious respiratory diseases with a wide range of severe symptoms and cause great disease burdens globally. It has become very urgent to develop an efficient bivalent vaccine that can target these two infectious diseases simultaneously. In this study, we have developed a novel vaccine technology in which a large mucin-like domain-deleted Ebola glycoprotein (EboGPΔM) was fused with a large heterologous polypeptide, a multi-copies of the ectodomain of influenza (M2e) in order to elicit efficient immune responses against M2e. Meanwhile, we combined this fusion technology with a VSV vector to generate a bivalent vaccine against SARS-CoV2 and influenza A viruses. Animal studies have shown that immunization with this bivalent VSV vaccine induced efficient immune responses against both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza. Furthermore, vaccination with the bivalent vaccine via either intramuscular or intranasal route efficiently protected mice from the lethal challenge of H1N1, H3N2, H5N1 or SARS-CoV-2 Delta virus. These studies provide convincing evidence for the high efficacy of this bivalent vaccine. Further investigation of its efficacy to protect against other Influenza A viruses and SARS-CoV-2 variants will open a new avenue to control these two contagious respiratory infections.