Polymersomes Decorated with the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Receptor-Binding Domain Elicit Robust Humoral and Cellular Immunity

Volpatti, Lisa R.; Wallace, Rachel P.; Cao, Shijie; Raczy, Michal M.; Wang, Ruyi; Gray, Laura T.; Alpar, Aaron T.; Briquez, Priscilla S.; Mitrousis, Nikolaos; Marchell, Tiffany M.; Sasso, Maria Stella; Nguyen, Mindy; Mansurov, Aslan; Budina, Erica; Solanki, Ani; Watkins, Elyse A.; Schnorenberg, Mathew R.; Tremain, Andrew C.; Reda, Joseph W.; Nicolaescu, Vlad; Furlong, Kevin; Dvorkin, Steve; Yu, Shann S.; Manicassamy, Balaji; LaBelle, James L.; Tirrell, Matthew V.; Randall, Glenn; Kwissa, Marcin; Swartz, Melody A.; Hubbell, Jeffrey A.

[Image: see text] The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for rapid, safe, and effective vaccines. In contrast to some traditional vaccines, nanoparticle-based subunit vaccines are particularly efficient in trafficking antigens to lymph nodes, where they induce potent immune cell activation. Here, we developed a strategy to decorate the surface of oxidation-sensitive polymersomes with multiple copies of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) to mimic the physical form of a virus particle. We evaluated the vaccination efficacy of these surface-decorated polymersomes (RBD(surf)) in mice compared to RBD-encapsulated polymersomes (RBD(encap)) and unformulated RBD (RBD(free)), using monophosphoryl-lipid-A-encapsulated polymersomes (MPLA PS) as an adjuvant. While all three groups produced high titers of RBD-specific IgG, only RBD(surf) elicited a neutralizing antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 comparable to that of human convalescent plasma. Moreover, RBD(surf) was the only group to significantly increase the proportion of RBD-specific germinal center B cells in the vaccination-site draining lymph nodes. Both RBD(surf) and RBD(encap) drove similarly robust CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell responses that produced multiple Th1-type cytokines. We conclude that a multivalent surface display of spike RBD on polymersomes promotes a potent neutralizing antibody response to SARS-CoV-2, while both antigen formulations promote robust T cell immunity.