Intranasal Administration of a Recombinant RBD Vaccine Induced Protective Immunity Against SARS-CoV-2 in Mouse

Du, Yingying; Xu, Yuhua; Feng, Jin; Hu, Longbo; Zhang, Yanan; Zhang, Bo; Guo, Weili; Mai, Runming; Chen, Liyun; Fang, Jianmin; Zhang, Hui; Peng, Tao

The emergence of the global Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic underscores the importance of the rapid development of a non-invasive vaccine that can be easily administered. A vaccine administered by nasal delivery is endowed with such characteristics against respiratory viruses. In this study, we generated a recombinant SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)-based subunit vaccine. Mice were immunized via intranasal inoculation, microneedle-intradermal injection, or intramuscular injection, after which the RBD-specific immune responses were compared. Results showed that when administrated intranasally, the vaccine elicited a robust systemic humoral immunity with high titers of IgG antibodies and neutralizing antibodies as well as a significant mucosal immunity. Besides, antigen-specific T cell responses were also analyzed. These results indicated that the non-invasive intranasal administration should be explored for the future SARS-CoV-2 vaccine design.