Are Hamsters a Suitable Model for Evaluating the Immunogenicity of RBD-Based Anti-COVID-19 Subunit Vaccines?

• Published in: Viruses Vol. 14; no. 5; p. 1060
• Main Authors: Merkuleva, Iuliia A., Shcherbakov, Dmitry N., Borgoyakova, Mariya B., Isaeva, Anastasiya A., Nesmeyanova, Valentina S., Volkova, Natalia V., Aripov, Vazirbek S., Shanshin, Daniil V., Karpenko, Larisa I., Belenkaya, Svetlana V., Kazachinskaia, Elena I., Volosnikova, Ekaterina A., Esina, Tatiana I., Sergeev, Alexandr A., Titova, Kseniia A., Konyakhina, Yulia V., Zaykovskaya, Anna V., Pyankov, Oleg V., Kolosova, Evgeniia A., Viktorina, Olesya E., Shelemba, Arseniya A., Rudometov, Andrey P., Ilyichev, Alexander A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 16.05.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: animal models; Animals; Antibodies; Bioethics; Chickens; Cloning; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - prevention & control; COVID-19 vaccines; COVID-19 Vaccines - immunology; Cricetinae; Disease Models, Animal; Disease transmission; Eggs; Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; Epidemics; Ferrets; Immune response (humoral); Immunogenicity; Immunogenicity, Vaccine; Infections; Laboratories; Mice; Mice, Inbred BALB C; Proteins; Rabbits; receptor-binding domain; Respiratory diseases; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus - immunology; Vaccines; Vaccines, Subunit - immunology; United States > US; China; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; animal models; receptor-binding domain
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v14051060

Currently, SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor-binding-domain (RBD)-based vaccines are considered one of the most effective weapons against COVID-19. During the first step of assessing vaccine immunogenicity, a mouse model is often used. In this paper, we tested the use of five experimental animals (mice, hamsters, rabbits, ferrets, and chickens) for RBD immunogenicity assessments. The humoral immune response was evaluated by ELISA and virus-neutralization assays. The data obtained show hamsters to be the least suitable candidates for RBD immunogenicity testing and, hence, assessing the protective efficacy of RBD-based vaccines.