Vaccines Developed against COVID-19 should be based on
Nucleocapsid Rather than Spike Volume3 - Issue 4
Mostafa Norizadeh1,2*, Orkideh Hajipour3
1Department of Biotechnology, Faulty of Advanced Sciences and Technology, Islamic Azad University, Iran
2Applied Biotechnology Research Center, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Iran
3Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Arts, Pamukkale University, Turkey
Received:May 12, 2023; Published:May 18, 2023
*Corresponding author: Mostafa Norizadeh, Department of Biotechnology, Faulty of Advanced Sciences and Technology, Tehran
Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious illness affected
by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. A SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is a vaccine
produced to provide developed immunity against COVID-19. The
vaccine is available on different platforms. There are many variants
of SARS-CoV-2 that contribute to the perpetuation of the COVID-19
pandemic. The most significant of these variants are alpha, beta,
gamma, delta, and omicron. Omicron (B.1.1.529) is a variant of
COVID-19 that was first detected in Botswana. Behind the original
Omicron variant, many subvariants of Omicron have appeared
including BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5, BQ.1, and BQ.1.1, XBBç
1.5 and XBB1.16 have emerged [1-3]. The used vaccines are either
inactivated vaccines or made according to Spike protein, although
they are produced on different platforms. Currently, some vaccines
are monovalent and some are bivalent, and some have been
updated. For instance, Pfizer and Moderna are bivalent vaccines to
protect against the COVID-19 wild type and the Omicron variant.
Although the vaccines used are updated, the Omicron variant is
constantly mutating and many of the mutations are in the Spike
gene. As a consequence, the effect of the used vaccines decreases
every day and the pandemic does not end. The Nucleocapsid is
one of the covid-19 structural proteins. The Nucleocapsid protein
has not undergone many mutations, but many mutations of the
spike protein have been reported from different variants. The
antigenicity of the Nucleocapsid protein was tested by VaxiJen.
The vixen score of Nucleocapsid is 0.5522. Since this score is above
the 0.4 thresholds, it indicates that Nucleocapsid can stimulate
the immune system [4-5]. Therefore, the protein can be targeted
in the production of new vaccines. If vaccines are made from nonmutated
or slightly mutated proteins, they may cause the end of
the pandemic. In our opinion, Nucleocapsid would be that protein.
Norizadehtazehkand M, Hajipour O (2020) Evaluating the Vaccine Potential of a Tetravalent Fusion Protein against Coronavirus (COVID-19). J Vaccines Vaccin 11(2): 2-6.