{"doi":"10.3389/fimmu.2024.1386243","title":"Sex-biased immunogenicity of a mucosal subunit vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in mice","abstract":"Introduction: Current vaccines against COVID-19 administered via parenteral route have limited ability to induce mucosal immunity. There is a need for an effective mucosal vaccine to combat SARS-CoV-2 virus replication in the respiratory mucosa. Moreover, sex differences are known to affect systemic antibody responses against vaccines. However, their role in mucosal cellular responses against a vaccine remains unclear and is underappreciated. Methods: We evaluated the mucosal immunogenicity of a booster vaccine regimen that is recombinant protein-based and administered intranasally in mice to explore sex differences in mucosal humoral and cellular responses. Results: Our results showed that vaccinated mice elicited strong systemic antibody (Ab), nasal, and bronchiole alveolar lavage (BAL) IgA responses, and local T cell immune responses in the lung in a sex-biased manner irrespective of mouse genetic background. Monocytes, alveolar macrophages, and CD103+ resident dendritic cells (DCs) in the lungs are correlated with robust mucosal Ab and T cell responses induced by the mucosal vaccine. Discussion: Our findings provide novel insights into optimizing next-generation booster vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 by inducing spike-specific lung T cell responses, as well as optimizing mucosal immunity for other respiratory infections, and a rationale for considering sex differences in future vaccine research and vaccination practice.","journal":"Frontiers in Immunology","year":2024,"id":468075,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9557,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":370473,"name":"Kevin S. Hsu","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":527560,"name":"Savannah E. Howe","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":384494,"name":"Tanya Hoang","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":191233,"name":"Xia Zheng","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388227,"name":"Jay A. Berzofsky","orcid":"0000-0002-0342-3194","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":456627,"name":"Yongjun Sui","orcid":"0000-0002-1568-4607","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":648681,"name":"Jianping Li","orcid":"0000-0002-4771-1606","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":77,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:05:19.071498Z","pmid":"38835757","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":[]}