The investigation of mRNA vaccines formulated in liposomes administrated in multiple routes against SARS-CoV-2

COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented global public health crisis. It is obvious that SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is needed to control the global COVID-19 public health crisis. Since obvious advantages including fast manufacturing speed, potent immunogenicity and good safety profile, six mRNA vaccines have been used to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections in clinic with lipid nanoparticles (LNP) formulation via intramuscular injection.

In this work, we first constructed RBD-encoding mRNA (RBD-mRNA) formulated in liposomes (LPX/RBD-mRNA) and investigated the influence of administration routes on the immunogenicity. LPX/RBD-mRNA can express RBD in vivo and successfully induced SARS-CoV-2 RBD specific antibodies in the vaccinated mice, which efficiently neutralized SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped virus.

Moreover, the administration routes were found to affect the virus neutralizing capacity of sera derived from the immunized mice and the types (Th1-type and Th2-type) of cellular immune responses. This study indicated that liposome-based RBD-mRNA vaccine with optimal administration route might be a potential candidate against SARS-CoV-2 infection with good efficacy and safety.

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Article information: Hai Huang, Caili Zhang, Shuping Yang, Wen Xiao, Qian Zheng, Xiangrong Song. The investigation of mRNA vaccines formulated in liposomes administrated in multiple routes against SARS-CoV-2, Journal of Controlled Release, Volume 335, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2021.05.024.