[PDF][PDF] SARS-CoV-2 vaccination induces immunological T cell memory able to cross-recognize variants from Alpha to Omicron

A Tarke, CH Coelho, Z Zhang, JM Dan, ED Yu… - Cell, 2022 - cell.com
A Tarke, CH Coelho, Z Zhang, JM Dan, ED Yu, N Methot, NI Bloom, B Goodwin, E Phillips…
Cell, 2022cell.com
We address whether T cell responses induced by different vaccine platforms (mRNA-1273,
BNT162b2, Ad26. COV2. S, and NVX-CoV2373) cross-recognize early SARS-CoV-2
variants. T cell responses to early variants were preserved across vaccine platforms. By
contrast, significant overall decreases were observed for memory B cells and neutralizing
antibodies. In subjects∼ 6 months post-vaccination, 90%(CD4+) and 87%(CD8+) of
memory T cell responses were preserved against variants on average by AIM assay, and …
Summary
We address whether T cell responses induced by different vaccine platforms (mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, Ad26.COV2.S, and NVX-CoV2373) cross-recognize early SARS-CoV-2 variants. T cell responses to early variants were preserved across vaccine platforms. By contrast, significant overall decreases were observed for memory B cells and neutralizing antibodies. In subjects ∼6 months post-vaccination, 90% (CD4+) and 87% (CD8+) of memory T cell responses were preserved against variants on average by AIM assay, and 84% (CD4+) and 85% (CD8+) preserved against Omicron. Omicron RBD memory B cell recognition was substantially reduced to 42% compared with other variants. T cell epitope repertoire analysis revealed a median of 11 and 10 spike epitopes recognized by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, with average preservation > 80% for Omicron. Functional preservation of the majority of T cell responses may play an important role as a second-level defense against diverse variants.
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