Engineered Coronavirus Spike Proteins for Cross-Variant Immunity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vaccines and treatments are inadequate in providing broad protection against rapidly evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants, leading to reinfections and disease spread, necessitating the development of vaccines that can protect against multiple variants.
Innovation Solution
Engineering coronavirus spike proteins with specific mutations to enhance cross-reactivity and induce high levels of neutralizing antibodies, using expression vectors and host cells to produce these proteins for prophylactic treatment and vaccines.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If existing vaccines are designed to target a single SARS-CoV-2 variant, then they can provide strong protection against that specific variant, but they fail to provide broad protection against rapidly evolving variants
Solution Approach 1:
The patent designs a universal coronavirus vaccine platform that can protect against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants simultaneously. The vaccine uses a conserved coronavirus antigen (such as the S2 subunit or fusion peptide) that is shared across different coronavirus species and variants, enabling a single vaccine to provide broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants and potentially other coronaviruses as well.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent modifies vaccine design parameters by shifting from variant-specific antigens (like the full S1-RBD) to conserved antigen regions (like S2 or fusion peptide) that remain relatively unchanged across variants. This parameter change in antigen selection allows the vaccine to maintain efficacy despite viral evolution.
2Reliability
If vaccines are updated frequently to match new variants, then protection against current variants improves, but the complexity of vaccine development and deployment increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent takes preliminary action by targeting conserved antigen regions that are known to be stable across variants. By designing the vaccine around these pre-identified conserved regions (such as the S2 subunit or fusion peptide), the vaccine inherently possesses broader and more durable protection without requiring frequent updates, thus reducing development complexity over time.
3Strength
If the spike protein is used as the vaccine antigen, then it can induce strong immune response, but the rapid evolution of the spike protein reduces vaccine effectiveness
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the protective immune-inducing capability from the variable S1 portion of the spike protein and isolates it in the form of the conserved S2 subunit or fusion peptide. By taking out this specific functional element that induces neutralizing antibodies while excluding the rapidly evolving RBD, the vaccine maintains both strong immune response and stability against viral evolution.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments provided here include engineered viral proteins, such as but not limited to coronavirus spike proteins, e.g., SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins. These engineered viral proteins comprise modifications or mutations that facilitate secretion and efficient production. Exemplary engineered coronavirus spike proteins of the disclosure can combine mutations in regions of the spike proteins observed in various viruses of concern that have circulated in humans in one singular protein sequence. Additional embodiments provide nucleic acid molecules encoding the coronavirus spike proteins of the disclosure, pharmaceutical compositions and host cells comprising the proteins and/or nucleic acid molecules described here, methods and uses thereof for the prophylactic treatment of infection or disease associated with a coronavirus infection, and methods of producing such coronavirus spike proteins, as well as provide neutralizing antibody titers representing SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, and high throughput, large scale bioreactor operation methods for production of human vaccines based on purified Spike proteins.