mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine

mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine
Hassan Karami,^1,* Kaveh Sadeghi,²
1. Virology Department, Faculty of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Silences, Tehran, Iran
2. Virology Department, Faculty of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Silences, Tehran, Iran
Introduction: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a deadly respiratory pathogen found in china at first and around the world in a short time. Due to the negative impact that this virus has imposed on the world economy and additionally, the high incidence and mortality rate of this virus, like other emerging diseases, the need for an effective and safe vaccine is very much felt. Therefore, many institutions and health investors in a competitive environment have focused their efforts on finding a vaccine that can provide potential and sustainable immunity in the absence of adverse effects against the virus. In this way, mRNAs as antigen encoding nucleic acids synthesized for immunogenic purposes called attention of researchers for investment. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the initial data released from the latest findings of the new coronavirus mRNA-1273 vaccine
Methods: To write this article, four scientific databases including: PubMed, Science direct, Scopus and Google scholar plus Google search engine were reviewed by a systematic search for all available data both in the form of published articles and in the form of scientific texts and news. The search keywords were: “SARS-CoV-2”, “Vaccine” and “mRNA-1273” and the time ranged from December 2019 to September 2020.
Results: MRNA-1273 is an RNA molecule which is collaboratively developed by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna, Inc., and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), synthetized with the ability to encode the prefusion stabilized spike protein as an immunogenic antigen which is packaged in lipid nanoparticles and delivered into the cells and to translate into surface proteins and present to the antigen-presenting cells, which ultimately produces a strong response of neutralizing antibodies and induces cellular immunity by stimulating T-helper cells and cytotoxic cells immunity which seems to play a more effective role than antibodies in clearing the virus from the body. The vaccine has also been able to reduce viral titers in the respiratory tract of studied models. In terms of side effects, this vaccine has been reported to have no pathological or other serious cellular effects. Phase 1 and 2 of clinical trials which began in March and May 2020, showed favorable results that encouraged researchers to begin further studies in the third phase of clinical trials. The vaccine is currently in phase three of its confirmation trials and it is hoped that further tests will yield promising results.
Conclusion: Developing mRNA-based vaccines as non-infectious and safe, well tolerable as well as rapid in production vaccines worth to be considered for infectious diseases such as: coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). By reviewing initial data, we conclude that mRNA-1273 could provide an acceptable level of humoral antiviral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 as well as safety for vaccine recipients which can be considered as one of the potential vaccines in this case. Of course, the final approval of this vaccine for use in all human cases requires the completion of clinical trials, and therefore the effectiveness and safety of this vaccine cannot be predicted without considering other testing steps.
Keywords: mRNA-1273, Vaccine, SARS-CoV-2