Understanding mRNA Vaccines and Their Potential Misuse

What is mRNA?

mRNA, or messenger RNA, is like a recipe card in the kitchen of a cell. Your body is like a large kitchen, and each cell is a chef. The DNA in your body is like a big, precious cookbook that’s kept safe and doesn’t leave the library (the cell’s nucleus).

How does mRNA work?

When the body needs to make a protein (like a dish), it can’t bring the whole cookbook into the kitchen. Instead, it makes a copy of the specific recipe it needs. This copy is the mRNA. The mRNA leaves the library and goes into the kitchen, where the cell’s machinery (the chef) reads the recipe and makes the protein (the dish).

mRNA Vaccines

In terms of mRNA vaccines, think of it as giving the chefs a recipe for a dish that looks like part of a virus. The chefs make the dish, and then your body’s security team (the immune system) learns what that dish looks like. So if the actual virus ever tries to get into your body, your security team recognizes it and knows how to get rid of it.

Another Analogy for mRNA

Think of a cell as a factory, and proteins as the products it makes. The DNA in the nucleus of the cell is like the master blueprint stored in the factory’s design department. It contains all the plans for every product the factory can make.

How does this analogy work?

Now, let’s say the factory needs to make a specific product. It wouldn’t be practical or safe to take the master blueprint out of the design department every time. So, instead, a copy of the specific plan needed (the mRNA) is made and sent to the factory floor.

mRNA Vaccines in this analogy

In terms of mRNA vaccines, it’s like sending the factory a plan for a decoy of a harmful product. The factory makes this decoy, which alerts the security team (the immune system). The security team then learns how to recognize and deal with this harmful product if it ever shows up in future.

mRNA Vaccines: How They Work

Cells accept the mRNA from vaccines because it’s delivered in a way that mimics the process of protein production that’s constantly happening in our bodies. The mRNA in vaccines is packaged in lipid nanoparticles, which can easily merge with cell membranes and deliver the mRNA into the cells. Once inside, the cell’s machinery reads the mRNA and makes the viral protein.

Immune Response Triggered by mRNA Vaccines

In these vaccines, the mRNA is designed to carry the genetic instructions for cells in the body to produce a viral protein that triggers an immune response. This response helps protect against future encounters with the virus. The mRNA in these vaccines is synthetically produced in a lab.

The term “decoy of a harmful product” in the context of mRNA vaccines refers to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The mRNA in the vaccine provides instructions to our cells to produce a harmless piece of this spike protein. Once produced, our immune system recognizes this protein as foreign and mounts an immune response against it. This process allows our immune system to learn how to protect against future infection if the real virus enters our body. The spike protein is like a “decoy” because it mimics a part of the virus, triggering an immune response without causing disease.

Potential Misuse of mRNA Technology

While the misuse of mRNA technology is largely theoretical and speculative, it’s important to understand that any misuse would likely involve unethical and illegal activities. Here are a few hypothetical scenarios:

Creation of Harmful Proteins

Since mRNA technology involves instructing cells to produce specific proteins, misuse could theoretically involve creating harmful proteins. However, this would require advanced knowledge and resources, and would be heavily regulated and illegal.

Biological Weapons

In theory, mRNA technology could be misused to create biological weapons. Again, this would be highly illegal and against international law.

Unethical Genetic Modifications

While mRNA vaccines do not alter a person’s DNA, the broader field of genetic engineering does have the potential for misuse if ethical guidelines are not followed.

DNA and RNA: The Building Blocks of Life

DNA in Human Cells

Nearly every cell in a human body contains DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). The complete DNA instruction book, or genome, for a human contains about 3 billion bases and about 20,000 genes on 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each chromosome is formed by 2 strands of DNA tied by hydrogen bonds to each other making the classic DNA double helix (double-stranded DNA). So, in total there are 46*2=92 strands of DNA in each diploid human cell.

Understanding RNA

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a type of nucleic acid that tells your body how to make proteins. It’s essential for most biological functions, either by performing the function itself (Non-coding RNA) or by forming a template for production of proteins (messenger RNA).

Types of RNA

Not all RNA are messenger RNA (mRNA). There are several types of RNA. The three primary categories of RNA are mRNA, ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and transfer RNA (tRNA). Other types include small nuclear RNA (snRNA), microRNA (miRNA), small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA), and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA).

mRNA Vaccines: A Revolutionary Approach

How mRNA Vaccines Work

mRNA is a short-lived molecule, meaning it degrades easily and does not last long inside cells. After being injected into the muscle of the upper arm, the mRNA in vaccines, which is protected by a layer of lipids (fats), enters nearby cells. Inside the cell, the mRNA sheds its protective fat layer and gives instructions on how to make a spike protein. Once the spike protein is made, the mRNA is destroyed.

Targeting Specific Cells

Vaccines do not send mRNA to all cells. They introduce mRNA into your muscle cells. The cells make copies of the spike protein and the mRNA is quickly degraded (within a few days). The cell breaks the mRNA up into small harmless pieces. The mRNA vaccines work by teaching your body’s cells how to temporarily produce an antigen themselves. This triggers an immune response that helps protect you should you encounter the actual pathogen in future.

Understanding mRNA Vaccines

Step 1: Vaccine Administration

The mRNA vaccines (like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines) are injected into the muscle of the upper arm.

Step 2: mRNA Delivery

The mRNA, which is protected by a layer of lipids (fats), enters nearby cells. Inside the cell, the mRNA sheds its protective fat layer and gives instructions on how to make a spike protein.

Step 3: Protein Production

This is a protein found on the outside of the novel coronavirus. The virus uses it to attach to and enter host cells. Once the spike protein is made, the mRNA is destroyed and the cell displays the spike protein on its surface.

Step 4: Immune Response

Your immune system recognizes this spike protein as foreign and mounts an immune response against it. This includes producing antibodies that can recognize and neutralize the virus, as well as T cells that can kill infected cells.

Step 5: Immune Memory

Importantly, your immune system also develops a memory of this response. This means that if you are exposed to the actual virus in the future, your immune system can quickly recognize it and mount an effective response to prevent you from getting sick.

Conclusion: Protection Without Reaching All Cells

Even though the mRNA doesn’t reach all cells, it doesn’t need to. It just needs to reach enough cells to produce the viral proteins and trigger an immune response. Once your immune system has learned to recognize the virus, it can protect all cells in your body from infection.

Duration of Immune Response to mRNA Vaccines

Initial Immune Response

The immune response to mRNA vaccines, such as those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, lasts for several months. Studies have found that one month after people received two doses of either mRNA vaccine, the vaccine effectiveness was 53% in protecting against symptoms of COVID-19.

Waning Immunity Over Time

After six months, the overall effectiveness of the vaccines dropped further to 14%, and to 9% after nine months. However, booster doses after the primary series restored protection back to levels achieved just after the primary vaccination.

Protection Against Severe Disease

It’s important to note that while protection against symptomatic infection may wane over time, protection against severe disease, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19 wanes much more slowly.

Persistence of Immune Cells

Other studies have shown that CD4+ T lymphocytes — immune system cells also known as helper T cells — produced by people who received either of the two available mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 persist six months after vaccination at only slightly reduced levels from two weeks after vaccination and are at significantly higher levels than for those who are unvaccinated.

Factors Influencing Duration of Immunity

The duration of immunity can vary among individuals and is influenced by factors such as age, underlying health conditions, and the specific variant of the virus that a person is exposed to. Ongoing research is being conducted to monitor the duration of immunity provided by COVID-19 vaccines and the potential need for additional booster doses.