A study on mRNA Vaccines: One Vaccine for all?

Agrima Bhatt, Rajasthan University

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought some serious landmarks in the field of science. With little knowledge of the infecting virus and its variants, scientists have made giant leaps to protect our society and to stop the spread of the virus. These giant leaps have come in the form of the development of vaccines which gathered support from all around the world. In the field of vaccinology alone, the emergence of two mRNA vaccines developed in a short period signifies serious progress in science.

Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are the two types of mRNA vaccines i.e., messenger vaccines developed in the USA which are currently in use. Both of the vaccines have been approved by the CDC for public use, but still, questions about the innate immunity to mRNA vaccines remain unanswered. To put another feather in the cap, researchers from Stanford University, USA used the system vaccinology approach to research in detail about the innate and adaptive immune response in volunteers who were given the vaccine doses. But before going into that, let’s first know what mRNA vaccines are!

What are mRNA vaccines?

Traditionally, vaccines have been made from inactivated or weakened pathogens but that is not true for mRNA vaccines. mRNA vaccines when introduced into the cell first makes a protein that triggers an immune response in our bodies, this immune response is behind the production of antibodies.

The reason why researchers are interested in this type of vaccine rather than the traditional vaccine lies behind the fact that mRNA vaccine development is much faster since it is made from readily available materials in the laboratory.

mRNA vaccines are novel but not entirely! mRNA vaccines have been researched previously for diseases like flu, Zika, rabies, etc. Future mRNA vaccines may have the possibility of one vaccine protecting against more than one disease.

Study of Stanford University, USA

This study is the first systematic analysis of immunity after the administration of the mRNA vaccine. It was studied that after the first dose administration of BNT162b2, it stimulated antiviral immunity with type I IFN response. It was noted that after the second dose an enhanced immune response followed through. This experimentation was done with the help of 56 healthy volunteers who were given the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Immune response after the second dose of vaccination resulted in the elevated production of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) with a high amount of increase in CD4 and CD8 T cells. Single-cell transcriptome analysis results showed the increase in the numbers of myeloid cells containing the interferon-response transcription factors even before the second dose of vaccination against the Wuhan COVID-19 strain of the virus.

A booster dose of vaccination was also studied which resulted in an even greater frequency in the number of CD14 and CD16 inflammatory monocytes, increased amount of plasma, and innate immunity transcriptional signature. This study effectively demonstrated the enhanced immunity after vaccination and also proved the capacity of booster immunization dose which provides a much more potent response. 

Also read: Tachypnoea- Breathing Abnormality

Reference:

1. Arunachalam, P. S., Scott, M. K. D., Hagan, T., Li, C., Feng, Y., Wimmers, F., Grigoryan, L., Trisal, M., Edara, V. V., Lai, L., Chang, S. E., Feng, A., Dhingra, S., Shah, M., Lee, A. S., Chinthrajah, S., Sindher, S. B., Mallajosyula, V., Gao, F., & Sigal, N. (2021). Systems vaccinology of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine in humans. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03791-x

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Author’s info:

Agrima Bhatt is an undergraduate student studying BSc. Biotechnology in Jaipur, Rajasthan. She is a science and research enthusiast who also loves to write articles and short snippets.

Some of her published articles at BioXone are:

1. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/molecular-mechanisms-underlying-virescent-mutation-in-cotton/
2. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/multi-angle-projection-microscope-a-novel-imaging-technique/
3. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/scientists-develop-novel-cholera-vaccine-from-rice-grains/
4. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/ai-predicts-the-relation-between-viruses-and-mammals/