Super Adjuvant
A substance has been created that increases the effectiveness of covid vaccines tenfold
American scientists have developed an adjuvant compound that significantly increases the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines due to the fact that it directs the active substance directly to the lymph nodes. Experiments on mice have shown that the new compound can reduce the dosage of vaccines by ten times while maintaining the same level of protection.
A description of the development is given in the journal Science Advances (Steinbuck et al., A lymph node–targeted Amphiphile vaccine induces potent cellular and humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2).
Scientists from different countries continue to search for a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, which generates powerful T-cell immunity, neutralizes antibody responses and provides effective protection for all age groups.
One of the known ways to increase the effectiveness of vaccines is the addition of adjuvant substances used to enhance the immune response against a particular pathogen. The action of most adjuvants is based on their ability to adsorb the virus antigen on their surface and store it in the body for a long time, which increases the duration of the effect on the immune system.
The new AMP-CpG adjuvant, developed by specialists from ElicioTherapeutics, delivers the vaccine antigen directly to the lymph nodes – the "transit stations" of B and T lymphocytes. This significantly increases the effectiveness of vaccines compared to the standard version, when the vaccine substance simply "wanders" through the bloodstream until it "stumbles" on the necessary immune cells.
Initially, AMP-CpG adjuvant was developed for anticancer vaccines, but the authors proved that it can be successfully used with COVID-19 vaccines containing the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (Spike RBD).
The results of the test on mice showed that when animals were immunized with a vaccine containing AMP-CpG, their antigen-specific T-cell immune response was more than 25 times higher than in mice injected with the same vaccine antigen with standard aluminum-potassium sulfate, often used as an adjuvant of inactivated vaccines.
Thirty-five days after immunization, the researchers evaluated T-cell immunity in spleen leukocytes, tissue cells and lung fluid of animals. In mice receiving the AMP-CpG adjuvant vaccine, the responses of antibodies and T cells were significantly higher than in mice from the control group receiving the standard version of the vaccine.
Moreover, in mice treated with AMP-CpG, the immune responses of T cells and antibodies were maintained even with a tenfold reduction in the dose of Spike RBD antigen. According to the developers, the addition of AMP-CpG adjuvant will significantly reduce the dose of COVID-19 vaccines, which will allow vaccinating a much larger number of people around the world.
In addition, the researchers evaluated immune responses in older mice and found that the new adjuvant induces higher immunity than any of the alternatives.
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