According to a new report published in the journal Advanced Materials, a messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccine that is vouched for its efficacy against the coronavirus, is being developed by using a bioengineering technique that utilises various naturally-occurring sequences and de novo design of mRNA components.

The authors of the study believe that this vaccination could be the most effective strategy to prevent viral infections in large populations.

Recently, mRNA-based vaccines have emerged as potential candidates for SARS-CoV-2 because of their fast development and manufacturing processes.

To effectively express an antigen, mRNA requires several components including a 5’ untranslated region (5’ UTR). The 5’ UTRs are regulators for protein translation and with proper modification can be used to produce higher-than-normal protein levels.

Yizhou Dong, senior author and associate professor of pharmaceutics and pharmacology at the Ohio State University, said in a statement: “We've been engineering messenger RNA for four years, and earlier this year we made some progress identifying a role for UTRs — and then Covid-19 happened.”

This mRNA vaccine induced over 300-fold more anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies than that formulated by MC3, a delivery system approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

“If the current vaccines work well, that’s wonderful. In case the field needs this, then it’s an option. It worked as a vaccine is expected to, and we can scale this up very fast,” said Dong.

“For now, it’s a proof of concept — we’ve demonstrated we can optimise a sequence of messenger RNA to improve protein production, produce antigens and induce antibodies against those specific antigens.”

This engineering strategy takes antigen design to a new level by making use of mRNA UTRs, the authors maintained.

“For our application, we tried to optimise the UTRs to improve the protein production process. We wanted as much protein produced as possible — so we can give a small dose of messenger RNA that produces enough antigen to induce antibodies against the virus,” Dong said.

Even if the team’s UTR modification strategy is not used for Covid-19, they are exploring the use of the technology for other therapeutics, they said.

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