Katalin Karikó on creating mRNA vaccines
On creating mRNA vaccines.
Katalin Karikó on creating mRNA vaccines
Vaccine History and Development
This article is about Katalin Karikó on creating mRNA vaccines. How Katalin Karikó made advances that lead to creating mRNA vaccines. Extracted from Nobel Award winner own article.
Nature Reviews Immunology volume 21, page 619 (2021)
In the 1990s, we started to investigate mRNA as a platform for protein replacement therapy. As these mRNAs encoded self-proteins, we did not think that mRNA transfection would generate any adverse immune effects. However, we found that transfecting human dendritic cells (DCs) with mRNA, or even with non-coding ribonucleotide homopolymers, induced inflammatory cytokines (Ni, H. et al., 2002).
The Importance of Toll-like Receptors
At the time, we knew that DNA activates Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) and that double-stranded RNA can activate TLR3 and induce type I interferon. We hypothesized that one of the remaining TLR family members might sense single-stranded RNA. We also started to explore the activation of human DCs by different types of RNA to determine whether they all induce inflammatory cytokines. Natural RNAs are synthesized from the four basic nucleotides, but some of the nucleosides can be post-transcriptionally modified. We found that tRNA, which is known to be enriched in modified nucleosides, was non-inflammatory, and that TLR7 and TLR8 sense single-stranded RNA. We set out to generate RNA with modified nucleosides by in vitro synthesis. Surprisingly, the replacement of uridine with pseudouridine rendered the RNAs non-immunogenic (Karikó, K. et al., 2005).
Later Studies
In subsequent studies, mRNA containing pseudouridine demonstrated that mRNA containing pseudouridine was an ideal molecule for protein replacement therapy. It was efficiently translated and, unlike its unmodified counterpart, did not induce interferon inflammation in mice. Indeed, the injection of a small amount of mRNA was sufficient for the encoded protein to exert its therapeutic effect (Karikó, K. et al., 2008; Karikó, K. et al., 2012).
the replacement of uridine with pseudouridine rendered the RNAs non-immunogenic
In parallel to these studies, we investigated mRNA as a platform for vaccine development. We predicted that uridine-containing (and thereby self-adjuvanted) mRNA encoding viral antigens would be optimal for vaccine development. Amazingly, non-immunogenic mRNA containing modified uridines also turned out to be a more suitable molecule for vaccine development (Pardi et al., 2017). Indeed, the first mRNA-based vaccines to receive regulatory authorization — developed by Moderna and by BioNTech/Pfizer for COVID-19 — are both based on 1-methylpseudouridine-containing mRNA.
And there you have it! Short and concise! We will in the future be featuring articles and stories on vaccines history and development. Jasmine.