Tapping the immunological imprints to design chimeric SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for elderly population

Biswas, Asim; Mandal, Rahul Subhra; Chakraborty, Suparna; Maiti, George

The impact of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 disease susceptibility varies depending on the age and health status of an individual. Currently, there are more than 140 COVID-19 vaccines under development. However, the challenge will be to induce an effective immune response in the elderly population. Analysis of B cell epitopes indicates the minor role of the stalk domain of spike protein in viral neutralization due to low surface accessibility. Nevertheless, the accumulation of mutations in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) might reduce the vaccine efficacy in all age groups. We also propose the concept of chimeric vaccines based on the co-expression of SARS-CoV-2 spike and influenza hemagglutinin (HA) and matrix protein 1 (M1) proteins to generate chimeric virus-like particles (VLP). This review discusses the possible approaches by which influenza-specific memory repertoire developed during the lifetime of the elderly populations can converge to mount an effective immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein with the possibilities of designing single vaccines for COVID-19 and influenza. HIGHLIGHTS: Immunosenescence aggravates COVID-19 symptoms in elderly individuals. Low immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in elderly population. Tapping the memory T and B cell repertoire in elderly can enhance vaccine efficiency. Chimeric vaccines can mount effective immune response against COVID-19 in elderly. Chimeric vaccines co-express SARS-CoV-2 spike and influenza HA and M1 proteins.