Metabolic and Proteomic Profiles Associated with Immune Responses Induced by Different Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Candidates

Abstract

Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in late 2019, the virus has been mutating continuously, resulting in the continuous emergence of variants and creating challenges for epidemic prevention and control. Here, we immunized mice with different vaccine candidates, revealing the immune, protein, and metabolomic changes that take place in vaccines composed of different variants. We found that the prototype strain and Delta- and Omicron-variant inactivated vaccine candidates could all induce a high level of neutralizing antibodies and cellular immunity responses in mice. Next, we found that the metabolic and protein profiles were changed, showing a positive association with immune responses, and the level of the change was distinct in different inactivated vaccines, indicating that amino acid variations could affect metabolomics and proteomics. Our findings reveal differences between vaccines at the metabolomic and proteomic levels. These insights provide a novel direction for the immune evaluation of vaccines and could be used to guide novel strategies for vaccine design.

Metabolomics acts as a powerful tool for comprehensively evaluating vaccines approved under emergency: a CoronaVac retrospective study

“…It provides a glimpse of the entire biological adaptive process after a specific stimulus from the facet of the metabolome dynamics (17,18). Metabolomics strategy has been employed to evaluate immune responses of some vaccines, and helped to explore immune effects that could not be uncovered by antibody detection or immune cell function appraisals (19)(20)(21)(22)(23). Not limited to that, metabolomics can help to find early biomarkers to indicate drug toxicities sensitively.…”