Newcastle disease virus-based MERS-CoV candidate vaccine elicits high-level and lasting neutralizing antibodies in Bactrian camels

Ren-Qiang Liu; Jin-Ying Ge; Jin-Ling Wang; Yu Shao; Hui-Lei Zhang; Jin-Liang Wang; Zhi-Yuan Wen; Zhi-Gao Bu

doi:10.1016/S2095-3119(17)61660-5

Newcastle disease virus-based MERS-CoV candidate vaccine elicits high-level and lasting neutralizing antibodies in Bactrian camels

J Integr Agric. 2017 Oct;16(10):2264-2273. doi: 10.1016/S2095-3119(17)61660-5. Epub 2017 Oct 9.

Authors

Ren-Qiang Liu¹, Jin-Ying Ge¹, Jin-Ling Wang², Yu Shao¹, Hui-Lei Zhang¹, Jin-Liang Wang¹, Zhi-Yuan Wen¹, Zhi-Gao Bu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin 150069, P.R.China.
² College of Veterinary Medicine, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, P.R.China.

Abstract

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a member of the Coronaviridae family, is the causative pathogen for MERS that is characterized by high fever, pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), as well as extrapulmonary manifestations. Currently, there are no approved treatment regimens or vaccines for MERS. Here, we generated recombinant nonvirulent Newcastle disease virus (NDV) LaSota strain expressing MERS-CoV S protein (designated as rLa-MERS-S), and evaluated its immunogenicity in mice and Bactrian camels. The results revealed that rLa-MERS-S showed similar growth properties to those of LaSota in embryonated chicken eggs, while animal immunization studies showed that rLa-MERS-S induced MERS-CoV neutralizing antibodies in mice and camels. Our findings suggest that recombinant rLa-MERS-S may be a potential MERS-CoV veterinary vaccine candidate for camels and other animals affected by MERS.

Keywords: MERS-CoV; Newcastle disease virus; camels; neutralizing antibodies.