Immunogenicity And Pathogenesis Of SARS-CoV Nucleocapsid Protein: A Preliminary Study

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged as an acute infectious disease characterized by fever and severe pneumonia infection. On April 16, 2003, its causative agent of SARS, through the efforts of WHO, was identified as a new type of coronavirus named SARS-CoV. Spreading quickly and widely, SARS-CoV affects human health and life as well as global economy. In order to prevent SARS-CoV from re-emerging, the development of effective SARS-CoV vaccines and a demonstration of SARS-CoV pathogenesis are in urgent. Therefore, this study was attempted to investigate the immunogenicity, that is, the induction of humoral and cellular immune responses of the two SARS-CoV nucleocapsid (N) gene recombinant genetic vaccines: (1) rAd-N, replication-defective adenoviral vector. (2) pcDNA3.1-N, which expresses N protein in mammal cells, by using pcDNA3.1-N prime-rAd-N boosts regimen and the reverse sequence of rAd-N prime-pcDNA3.1-N boosts regimen. The other objective of our study was to explore the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV, by confirming that SARS-CoV-N gene recombinant adenovirus could induce the excessive release of several proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1β , IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α in A549 lung cells , macrophages and human monocyte-derived dendritic cells. Part I Generation of SARS-CoV N protein gene recombinantadenoviral vectorTo identify the immunogenicity and pathogenesis, SARS-CoV N protein gene was amplified and cloned into adenoviral expression vector...