ReviewFrontiers in cell and developmental biology2021
The Critical Contribution of Pseudouridine to mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines.
Review in Frontiers in cell and developmental biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 153 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
153 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 258 citations in OpenAlex.
- Vaccines for COVID-19: A Systematic Review of Immunogenicity, Current Development, and Future Prospects.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Pooled it
- Antigen anisotropy: The overlooked geometric determinant of vaccine immunogenicity and fidelity.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2026Review
- Systematic metabolic engineering ofSynthetic and systems biotechnology · 2026Article
- Llama mRNA-LNP immunization enables rapid isolation of target specific nanobodies using cell-based panning.Antibody therapeutics · 2026Article
- Microneedles for Vaccination: Mechanistic Foundations, Materials Innovation, Clinical Translation, and Global Health Implementation.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Engineering the Future of Precision Medicine: A Comprehensive Guide to RNA Therapeutics.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Review
- The current landscape of mRNA therapy and the strategies for mRNA purification and dsRNA removal.Journal of biomedical science · 2026Review
- Next-Generation Nanocarrier Platforms for RNA Vaccines: Advances in Formulation, Stability Engineering, and Translational Manufacturing Challenges.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Ψ-Atlas: An Integrated Atlas for Pseudouridine Epitranscriptome.Genomics, proteomics & bioinformatics · 2026Article
- The impact of psuedouridine modification on human tRNA.Biochemical Society transactions · 2026Review
- Programming the immunological properties of mRNA vaccines for cancer.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2026Review
- A protocol for computational design of mRNA vaccines with high functionality and specificity.Biology direct · 2026Article
- Nearest Neighbor Parameters for Estimating the Folding Stability of RNA Including Pseudouridine.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Uridine analogs prevent stress granule formation, not by blocking PKR recognition, but by inhibiting the synthesis of T7 RNA polymerase byproducts.RNA (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- RNA Folding Nearest Neighbor Parameters Including the Modification 1-Methyl-Pseudouridine.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Beyond the Sequence: Chemical and Topological Design and Innovations in mRNA Therapeutics.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- RNA Therapeutics in Viral Infections and Cancer: Mechanisms, Challenges, and Prospects: A Review.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Increasing Transfection of Human Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells by Optimizing Lipid Nanoparticle Ionizable Lipid and mRNA Uridine Modification.Pharmaceutics · 2026Article
- N1MΨU-modified mRNA vaccines break the mold in fish by enhancing innate immune activation.Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids · 2026Article
93 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The current COVID-19 pandemic is a massive source of global disruption, having led so far to two hundred and fifty million COVID-19 cases and almost five million deaths worldwide. It was recognized in the beginning that only an effective vaccine could lead to a way out of the pandemic, and therefore the race for the COVID-19 vaccine started immediately, boosted by the availability of the viral sequence data. Two novel vaccine platforms, based on mRNA technology, were developed in 2020 by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Therapeutics (comirnaty® and spikevax®, respectively), and were the first ones presenting efficacies higher than 90%. Both consisted of N1-methyl-pseudouridine-modified mRNA encoding the SARS-COVID-19 Spike protein and were delivered with a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulation. Because the delivery problem of ribonucleic acids had been known for decades, the success of LNPs was quickly hailed by many as the unsung hero of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. However, the clinical trial efficacy results of the Curevac mRNA vaccine (CVnCoV) suggested that the delivery system was not the only key to the success. CVnCoV consisted of an unmodified mRNA (encoding the same spike protein as Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's mRNA vaccines) and was formulated with the same LNP as Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine (Acuitas ALC-0315). However, its efficacy was only 48%. This striking difference in efficacy could be attributed to the presence of a critical RNA modification (N1-methyl-pseudouridine) in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's mRNA vaccines (but not in CVnCoV). Here we highlight the features of N1-methyl-pseudouridine and its contributions to mRNA vaccines.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.