A SARS-CoV-2 peptide vaccine which elicits T-cell responses in mice but does not protect against infection or disease

Abstract We vaccinated BALB/c mice with peptides derived from the SARS-CoV-2 proteome selected in silico to elicit T-cell responses and/or B-cell responses against linear epitopes. These peptides were administered in combination with either of two adjuvants, poly(I:C) and the STING agonist BI-1387466. Antibody responses against predicted linear epitopes were not observed but both adjuvants consistently elicited T-cell responses to the same peptides, which were primarily from the set chosen for predicted T-cell immunogenicity. The magnitude of T-cell responses was significantly higher with BI-1387466 compared with poly(I:C). Neither adjuvant group, however, provided any protection against infection with the murine adapted virus SARS-CoV-2-MA10 or from disease following infection. In light of more recent evidence for protection from severe disease mediated by CD8+ T-cells, we suspect that the epitopes selected for vaccination were not presented by infected murine cells.