{"doi":"10.1101/2021.03.03.433558","title":"Engineered SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain improves immunogenicity in mice and elicits protective immunity in hamsters","abstract":"Global containment of COVID-19 still requires accessible and affordable vaccines for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). 1 Recently approved vaccines provide needed interventions, albeit at prices that may limit their global access. 2 Subunit vaccines based on recombinant proteins are suited for large-volume microbial manufacturing to yield billions of doses annually, minimizing their manufacturing costs. 3 These types of vaccines are well-established, proven interventions with multiple safe and efficacious commercial examples. 4–6 Many vaccine candidates of this type for SARS-CoV-2 rely on sequences containing the receptor-binding domain (RBD), which mediates viral entry to cells via ACE2. 7,8 Here we report an engineered sequence variant of RBD that exhibits high-yield manufacturability, high-affinity binding to ACE2, and enhanced immunogenicity after a single dose in mice compared to the Wuhan-Hu-1 variant used in current vaccines. Antibodies raised against the engineered protein exhibited heterotypic binding to the RBD from two recently reported SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (501Y.V1/V2). Presentation of the engineered RBD on a designed virus-like particle (VLP) also reduced weight loss in hamsters upon viral challenge.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":213534,"datarank":0.7778662472091338,"base_score":2.995732273553991,"endowment":2.995732273553991,"self_citation_contribution":0.4493598410330987,"citation_network_contribution":0.32850640617603505,"self_endowment_contribution":0.4493598410330987,"citer_contribution":0.32850640617603505,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":19,"citer_count":11,"citers_with_citation_signal":10,"citers_with_endowment":10,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9499,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":563726,"name":"Sergio A. Rodriguez‐Aponte","orcid":"0000-0002-6271-7918","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":625812,"name":"Brittany L. Hartwell","orcid":"0000-0002-5438-9010","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106717,"name":"Lisa H. Tostanoski","orcid":"0000-0001-9255-5684","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":563725,"name":"Andrew M. Biedermann","orcid":"0000-0002-2090-8118","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":563724,"name":"Laura E. Crowell","orcid":"0000-0002-3371-7193","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":445958,"name":"Kawaljit Kaur","orcid":"0000-0003-2624-9755","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":636808,"name":"Ozan S. Kumru","orcid":"0000-0002-5010-7223","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108913,"name":"Lauren Carter","orcid":"0000-0002-9837-9068","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106716,"name":"Jingyou Yu","orcid":"0000-0002-0775-6623","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":618175,"name":"Aiquan Chang","orcid":"0000-0002-9482-0979","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106719,"name":"Katherine McMahan","orcid":"0000-0002-3933-0539","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":636809,"name":"Thomas Courant","orcid":"0000-0002-1566-4382","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":637590,"name":"Célia Lebas","orcid":null,"position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":636810,"name":"Ashley A. Lemnios","orcid":"0000-0002-6866-6867","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":625814,"name":"Kristen A. 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Silverman","orcid":null,"position":30,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":618120,"name":"Harry Kleanthous","orcid":"0000-0001-7115-235X","position":31,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":446591,"name":"Sangeeta B. Joshi","orcid":null,"position":32,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":445966,"name":"David B. Volkin","orcid":"0000-0002-1448-1998","position":33,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":636813,"name":"Patrice Dubois","orcid":"0000-0002-7128-9396","position":34,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":636814,"name":"Nicolas Collin","orcid":"0000-0002-9304-3813","position":35,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108915,"name":"Neil P. King","orcid":"0000-0002-2978-4692","position":36,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106527,"name":"Dan H. Barouch","orcid":"0000-0001-5127-4659","position":37,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236278,"name":"Darrell J. 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