COVID-19: a respiratory vaccine effective in mice (IMAGE)
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Immune responses and protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus induced by the pulmonary vaccine. a) After administration, the vaccine efficiently penetrates the physical and biological barriers of the respiratory mucous membranes. b) This extracellular-targeted vaccine penetrates the airway epithelial cells (AEC) and pulmonary dendritic cells (DC). The synthetic vector allows the vaccine DNA to enter the nuclei of the DCs and the AECs to be transcribed into RNA and translated into SARS-CoV-2 antigens. AECs simultaneously orchestrate the adaptive immune responses via the local and transient secretion of cytokines. Mature pulmonary DCs then migrate to the bronchial-associated lymphoid tissues where they present antigens to naïve T cells and B cells for humoral and cellular immune responses. c) Activated B cells proliferate and differentiate into antibody-secreting plasma cells to generate secretory IgA (sIgA) and systemic IgG antibodies, the former of which efficiently neutralizes invading SARS-CoV-2 inside the body. d) A portion of T cells obtains a tissue resident memory phenotype (TRM), enabling them to reside in the airway and respond rapidly when encountering SARS-CoV-2 virus. The robust and comprehensive immunity conferred by this new class of lung vaccine eliminates viruses from the initial sites of infection and protects 100% of the vaccinated mice. © Sun et al./Biomaterials
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© Sun et al./Biomaterials
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