A 'wildcard' vaccine effective against multiple types of coronaviruses successfully tested in mice: in the first laboratory tests it was shown to stimulate the production of neutralizing antibodies not only against SarsCov2 (the Covid-19 virus), but also against SarsCoV1 ( responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome, Sars) and three other similar coronaviruses from bats and pangolins. The results are published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine by researchers from the University of Osaka, Japan.
If confirmed in humans, they could pave the way for a next-generation vaccine to prevent future coronavirus pandemics.
The current vaccines in use against Covid-19, in fact, are not broad-spectrum: they can only stimulate the production of antibodies that recognize the 'head' of the specific Spike protein of the SarsCov2 virus and not that of the other coronaviruses.
To overcome this problem, the Japanese researchers 'hooded' the Spike protein, so that the immune system would not recognize the virus-specific 'head' but the 'heart', which remains almost identical in the various coronaviruses.
