Internal medicine

Virus

Disease

Immunization

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Biology

Gene

Antibody

Virology

Vaccination

Measles

Immunology

Coronavirus

Measles virus

Measles vaccine

Neutralizing antibody

Recombinant DNA

Biochemistry

Medicine

Vero cell

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Significance Measles virus (MeV) vaccine is one of the safest and most efficient vaccines with a track record in children. Here, we generated a panel of rMeV-based vaccines with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) S antigens inserted near 3′ of the MeV genome. The rMeV expressing a soluble stabilized, prefusion spike (preS) is much more potent in triggering SARS-CoV-2–specific neutralizing antibody than rMeV-based full-length S vaccine candidate. A single dose of rMeV-preS is sufficient to induce high levels of SARS-CoV-2 antibody in animals. Furthermore, rMeV-preS induces high levels of Th1-biased immunity. Hamsters immunized with rMeV-preS were completely protected against SARS-CoV-2 challenge. Our results demonstrate rMeV-preS is a safe and highly efficacious bivalent vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2 and MeV.

A safe and highly efficacious measles virus-based vaccine expressing SARS-CoV-2 stabilized prefusion spike