• Vaccine Name: VRP-SARS-N vaccine
• Target Pathogen: MERS-CoV
• Target Disease: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)
• Type: Live, attenuated vaccine
• Status: Licensed
• Host Species for Licensed Use: None
• Host Species as Laboratory Animal Model: mouse
• Antigen: CD4+ T cell epitope in the nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-CoV (N353) (Zhou et al., 2006)
• Immunization Route: intranasal immunization
• Description: Venezuelan equine encephalitis replicons (VRP) encoding a SARS-CoV CD4+ T cell epitope vaccinated intranasally. Does not have same efficacy if vaccinated subcutaneously (Zhao et al., 2016) Identical to VRP-SARS-N vaccine (Vaccine 5759).

Mouse Response

• Host Strain: Balb/c
• Immune Response: Decreased viral titre, increase in N-specific CD4+ T cells and IFN-γ in lungs, production of IL-10, increased mobilization of CD8+ cells to infected lung. (Zhao et al., 2016)
• Efficacy: Protection at 100 pfu, protected at 500 and 1000 PFU doses (Zhao et al., 2016)