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. 2021 Mar 18;9:628137. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.628137

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Copyright © 2021 Damase, Sukhovershin, Boada, Taraballi, Pettigrew and Cooke.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Schematic showing the mechanism of action of conventional (BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines) and self-amplifying mRNA vaccines. The mRNA vaccine is translated into protein, processed by antigen presenting cells, and subsequently activates immune responses. nsP, non-structural protein; Cap, N7-methylated guanosine structure covalently joined to the first nucleotide of the mRNA through a reverse 5′ to 5′ triphosphate linkage (Kowalski et al., 2019; Dolgin, 2021); A, adenosine molecule; (A)n, poly-A tail; UTR, untranslated region.