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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Vaccines and Molecular Therapeutics
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1468760
This article is part of the Research Topic SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines Beyond the Pandemic Era View all 7 articles

Analysis of B-cell receptor repertoire to evaluate the immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 RBD mRNA vaccine: MAFB-7256a (DS-5670d)

Provisionally accepted
Ohji Goh Ohji Goh 1Yohei Funakoshi Yohei Funakoshi 2*Kimikazu Yakushijin Kimikazu Yakushijin 2Takaji Matsutani Takaji Matsutani 3Tomoki Sasaki Tomoki Sasaki 4Takahiro Kusakabe Takahiro Kusakabe 5Sakuya Matsumoto Sakuya Matsumoto 2Taiji Koyama Taiji Koyama 2Yoshiaki Nagatani Yoshiaki Nagatani 2Keiji Kurata Keiji Kurata 2Shiro Kimbara Shiro Kimbara 2Naomi Kiyota Naomi Kiyota 2Hironobu Minami Hironobu Minami 2
  • 1 Division of Infection Disease Therapeutics, Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Kobe University Hospital and Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan
  • 2 Division of Medical Oncology/Hematology, Department of Medicine, Kobe University Hospital and Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan
  • 3 Translational Research Dept. Maruho Co., Ltd., Kyoto, Japan
  • 4 R&D Department, KAICO Ltd., Fukuoka, Japan
  • 5 Laboratory of Insect Genome Science, Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    A monovalent Omicron XBB.1.5 mRNA RBD analogue vaccine, MAFB-7256a (DS-5670d), was newly developed and approved in Japan in the Spring of 2024 for the preventingprevention of COVID-19. However, clinical efficacy data for this vaccine are currently lacking. We previously established the Quantification of Antigen-specific Antibody Sequence (QASAS) method to assess the response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination at the mRNA level using B-cell receptor (BCR) repertoire assays and the Coronavirus Antibody Database (CoV-AbDab). Here, we used this method to evaluate the immunogenicity of MAFB-7256a. We analyzed repeated blood samples using the QASAS method from three healthy volunteers before and after MAFB-7256a vaccination.BCR response increased rapidly one week post-vaccination and then decreased, as with conventional vaccine. Notably, the matched sequences after MAFB-7256a vaccination specifically bound to the receptor-binding domain (RBD), with no sequences binding to other epitopes. These results validate that MAFB-7256a is an effective vaccine that exclusively induces antibodies specific for the RBD, demonstrating its targeted immunogenic effect.

    Keywords: mRNA RBD vaccine, B-cell receptor repertoire, Coronavirus Antibody Database, Quantification of antigen-specific antibody sequence, SARS-CoV-2

    Received: 22 Jul 2024; Accepted: 13 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Goh, Funakoshi, Yakushijin, Matsutani, Sasaki, Kusakabe, Matsumoto, Koyama, Nagatani, Kurata, Kimbara, Kiyota and Minami. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yohei Funakoshi, Division of Medical Oncology/Hematology, Department of Medicine, Kobe University Hospital and Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.