Application of secreted bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) to develop a candidate vaccine for middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

Background and Objective: A novel coronavirus Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged in 2012 in Saudi Arabia and caused high mortality rates in humans and spread to 27 other countries in the World No approved vaccine was developed for the virus till now Materials and Methods: a novel approach for vaccine development was introduced her using surface bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) which gave promising results A DNA construct containing the spike gene of MERS-CoV cloned in pcDNA3 1 mammalian expression vector then, transformed into Escherichia coli DH10 to prepare OMVs containing the spike protein The new candidate OMVs vaccine was immunized to BALB/c mice to be evaluated The whole MERS-CoV inactivated vaccine and empty vector OMVs were immunized as controls Results revealed that in Interestingly, the vaccinated mice showing a potent neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) titers against MERS-CoV comparable with the inactivated virus control after 8 wk of vaccination In Conclusion: we recommend new candidate OMVs vaccine for camel and human vaccination as a control strategy to limit the spread of MERS-CoV in the Arabian Peninsula region