Zhao, Tongxin, Liu, Sheng, Wang, Pengyan, Zhang, Yanfang, Kang, Xinrui, Pan, Xiaoqian, Li, Linjie, Li, Dedong, Gao, Ping, An, Yaling, Song, Hao, Liu, Kefang, Qi, Jianxun, Zhao, Xin, Dai, Lianpan, Liu, Peipei, Wang, Peiyi, Wu, Guizhen, Zhu, Taicheng, and Xu, Kun
Protective vaccines are crucial for preventing and controlling coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Updated vaccines are needed to confront the continuously evolving and circulating severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants. These vaccines should be safe, effective, amenable to easily scalable production, and affordable. Previously, we developed receptor binding domain (RBD) dimer-based protein subunit vaccines (ZF2001 and updated vaccines) in mammalian cells. In this study, we explored a strategy for producing RBD-dimer immunogens in Pichia pastoris. We found that wild-type P. pastoris produced hyperglycosylated RBD-dimer protein containing four N-glycosylation sites in P. pastoris. Therefore, we engineered the wild type P. pastoris (GS strain) into GSΔOCH1pAO by deleting the OCH1 gene (encoding α-1,6-mannosyltransferase enzyme) to decrease glycosylation, as well as by overexpressing the HIS4 gene (encoding histidine dehydrogenase) to increase histidine synthesis for better growth. In addition, RBD-dimer protein was truncated to remove the R328/F329 cleavage sites in P. pastoris. Several homogeneous RBD-dimer proteins were produced in the GSΔOCH1pAO strain, demonstrating the feasibility of using the P. pastoris expression system. We further resolved the cryo-EM structure of prototype-Beta RBD-dimer complexed with the neutralizing antibody CB6 to reveal the completely exposed immune epitopes of the RBDs. In a murine model, we demonstrated that the yeast-produced RBD-dimer induces robust and protective antibody responses, which is suitable for boosting immunization. This study developed the yeast system for producing SARS-CoV-2 RBD-dimer immunogens, providing a promising platform and pipeline for the future continuous updating and production of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Author summary: SARS-CoV-2 continuously circulates, resulting in infections and re-infections globally. COVID-19 vaccines can provide protection against disease and death caused by SARS-CoV-2. However, the immune responses induced by vaccination will wane gradually. In addition, new SARS-CoV-2 sub-variants emerge and show immune evasion. Therefore, inoculating with the updated COVID-19 vaccines is recommended for enhancing protection against the circulating SARS-CoV-2 sub-variants. Pichia pastoris is an eukaryotic system that enables fast and low-cost producing proteins with easy scale-up. In this study, we developed a strategy for producing SARS-CoV-2 RBD-dimer immunogens in glycoengineered Pichia pastoris with homogeneous glycosylation and high stability. The RBD antigen can be updated with the sequence of circulating sub-variants. In addition, mouse experiments demonstrated that the yeast-produced RBD-dimer vaccines induced robust and protective immune responses. This study provides a simple and promising approach to produce yeast-derived SARS-CoV-2 RBD-dimers as a boosting vaccine and guides the basis for the production of the other vaccines in Pichia pastoris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]