{"doi":"10.3389/fimmu.2022.844837","title":"A Novel Bacterial Protease Inhibitor Adjuvant in RBD-Based COVID-19 Vaccine Formulations Containing Alum Increases Neutralizing Antibodies, Specific Germinal Center B Cells and Confers Protection Against SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Mice","abstract":"In this work, we evaluated recombinant receptor binding domain (RBD)-based vaccine formulation prototypes with potential for further clinical development. We assessed different formulations containing RBD plus alum, AddaS03, AddaVax, or the combination of alum and U-Omp19: a novel Brucella spp. protease inhibitor vaccine adjuvant. Results show that the vaccine formulation composed of U-Omp19 and alum as adjuvants has a better performance: it significantly increased mucosal and systemic neutralizing antibodies in comparison to antigen plus alum, AddaVax, or AddaS03. Antibodies induced with the formulation containing U-Omp19 and alum not only increased their neutralization capacity against the ancestral virus but also cross-neutralized alpha, lambda, and gamma variants with similar potency. Furthermore, the addition of U-Omp19 to alum vaccine formulation increased the frequency of RBD-specific geminal center B cells and plasmablasts. Additionally, U-Omp19+alum formulation induced RBD-specific Th1 and CD8 + T-cell responses in spleens and lungs. Finally, this vaccine formulation conferred protection against an intranasal severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) challenge of K18-hACE2 mice.","journal":"Frontiers in Immunology","year":2022,"id":255131,"datarank":0.4566783656585135,"base_score":3.044522437723423,"endowment":3.044522437723423,"self_citation_contribution":0.4566783656585135,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.4566783656585135,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":20,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9551,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":819409,"name":"Lucas Saposnik","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":819410,"name":"Celeste Pueblas Castro","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818942,"name":"Eliana F. Castro","orcid":"0000-0003-1153-1176","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":819411,"name":"Laura Bruno","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":756780,"name":"William B. Stone","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818943,"name":"Paula S. Pérez","orcid":"0000-0003-1001-7239","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":819412,"name":"M. Laura Darriba","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":257859,"name":"Lucía B. Chemes","orcid":"0000-0003-0192-9906","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818944,"name":"Julieta Alcaín","orcid":"0000-0002-5594-272X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":614560,"name":"Ignacio Mazzitelli","orcid":"0000-0001-9351-5799","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":514581,"name":"Augusto Varese","orcid":"0000-0002-3129-2048","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":813721,"name":"Melina Salvatori","orcid":null,"position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":440343,"name":"Albert J. Auguste","orcid":"0000-0001-9048-0041","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":642537,"name":"Diego E. Álvarez","orcid":"0000-0002-4449-9670","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818945,"name":"Karina A. Pasquevich","orcid":"0000-0003-4448-0977","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818946,"name":"Juliana Cassataro","orcid":"0000-0002-7122-869X","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818941,"name":"Lorena M. Coria","orcid":"0000-0001-5359-8382","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":70,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:25:12.987829Z","pmid":"35296091","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}