An effective immune response requires a balance between identifying pathogens and controlling subsequent responses. The immune system is well equipped with sensing strategies to detect and react to distinct pathogen classes, it is expected that nucleic acid-based vaccines may also determine side effects due to unwanted immune activation.

As a part of Spoke 9 of the "CN3 - National Center for Gene Therapy and Drugs based on RNA Technology", in this project we aim at defining the immunogenic potential of nucleic acid-based vaccines. In particular we will evaluate in vitro the ability of mRNA vaccine Lead Compound coding for a mutated form of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein (from Dompè) and other RNA-based lead compounds to trigger the activation of different leukocyte types (monocytes, NK cells, innate lymphoid cells, dendritic cells, macrophages) by using spectral flow cytometry.