JCI Insight: Zhu Xuan/Huang Jiandong/Chen Fuhe team confirmed that BCG can induce training immunity against new crown infection

Editor | Wang Duoyu typography | Shui Chengwen Since the end of 2019, the new crown virus has caused more than 500 million confirmed cases and caused more than 6 million deaths
.

Although some new crown vaccines have been certified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and are being administered on a global scale
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But multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants have been reported to escape antibody neutralization, leading to vaccine breakthrough infections
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Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is known to induce protective immune responses against infections by different pathogens, including respiratory viral infections
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So, can the BCG vaccine fight against the new coronavirus? On April 21, the latest research results completed by the Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong and other units: Bacillus Calmette–Guérin-induced trained immunity protects against SARS-CoV-2 challenge in K18 -hACE2 mice are published in the journal JCI Insight
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This study confirms that Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) can resist SARS-CoV-2 infection by inducing training immunity
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Associate researcher Zhang Baozhong and Hu Jingchu of the Institute of Synthesis, Shenzhen Academy of Advanced Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Dr.
Shuai Huiping, Dr.
Gong Huarui and Dr.
Yan Bingpeng of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong are the co-first authors
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Assistant Professor Zhu Xuan, Professor Huang Jiandong and Clinical Associate Professor Chen Fuhe of HKU Faculty of Medicine are the co-corresponding authors
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In this study, the research team tested whether BCG-induced immunity was protective against 2019-nCoV infection in a K18-hACE2 mouse model
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The data suggest that intravenous BCG induces a robust trained innate immune response and provides protection against infection with wild-type SARS-CoV-2 as well as Kappa (B.
1.
617.
1) and Delta (B.
1.
617.
2) variants
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Further studies showed that activation of myeloid differentiation and glycolytic pathways were associated with BCG-induced immune training in K18-hACE2 mice
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This study provides experimental evidence for the causal relationship between intravenous BCG vaccination and challenge against multiple variant strains of 2019-nCoV
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The next step requires clinical trials to assess whether a clinically acceptable BCG vaccination strategy is helpful in the fight against the current COVID-19 outbreak
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BCG can induce training immunity against new coronavirus infection.
This work was supported by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Medical and Health Research Fund 2019 Coronavirus Disease Research Program (COVID190117) and Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Innovation Research Institute and other projects
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Introduction to PI and research group: Huang Jiandong, tenured professor of "Mingde Professorship" and chair professor of synthetic biology at the University of Hong Kong, visiting PI of the Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, chief scientist of the "Peacock Project"
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He is currently the deputy director of the Synthetic Biotechnology Branch of the China Medical Biotechnology Association, the deputy director of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Translational Medicine Alliance, and a member of the Synthetic Biology Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Bioengineering
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He has published more than 170 papers in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell Research and Nature Physics
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Huang Jiandong's team has long been committed to using synthetic biology methods to reveal the basic laws of life sciences and apply them to vaccine development, cancer immunotherapy and other fields
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It is planned to recruit 4 postdoctoral fellows with research backgrounds in synthetic biology, biophysics, systems biology, tumor immunology, microbiology and infectious diseases
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Interested applicants, please send your resume (required in PDF) to jdhuang@hku.
hk (please indicate the research direction you are applying for in the email), and the resume and email subject should indicate "Applicable Position-School Name-Professional-Name" "
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Laboratory homepage: http://isynbio.
siat.
ac.
cn/jdlab/ Paper link: https://insight.
jci.
org/articles/view/157393 Open for reprinting, welcome to forward to Moments and WeChat groups