Cell
Volume 185, Issue 14, 7 July 2022, Pages 2434-2451.e17
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Article
Humoral and cellular immune memory to four COVID-19 vaccines

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.05.022Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • 100% of mRNA or NVX-CoV2373 vaccinees make Spike memory CD4+ T cells

  • mRNA vaccines and Ad26.COV2.S induce similar frequencies of Spike memory CD8+ T cells

  • Infection or Ad26.COV2.S immunization increase frequency of Spike CXCR3+ memory B cells

  • Antibody wanes in mRNA vaccinees, but memory T and B cells are comparatively stable

Summary

Multiple COVID-19 vaccines, representing diverse vaccine platforms, successfully protect against symptomatic COVID-19 cases and deaths. Head-to-head comparisons of T cell, B cell, and antibody responses to diverse vaccines in humans are likely to be informative for understanding protective immunity against COVID-19, with particular interest in immune memory. Here, SARS-CoV-2-spike-specific immune responses to Moderna mRNA-1273, Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2, Janssen Ad26.COV2.S, and Novavax NVX-CoV2373 were examined longitudinally for 6 months 100% of individuals made memory CD4+ T cells, with cTfh and CD4-CTL highly represented after mRNA or NVX-CoV2373 vaccination. mRNA vaccines and Ad26.COV2.S induced comparable CD8+ T cell frequencies, though only detectable in 60–67% of subjects at 6 months. A differentiating feature of Ad26.COV2.S immunization was a high frequency of CXCR3+ memory B cells. mRNA vaccinees had substantial declines in antibodies, while memory T and B cells were comparatively stable. These results may also be relevant for insights against other pathogens.

Keywords

COVID-19 vaccine
SARS-COV2
humoral immunity
cellular immunity
immune memory

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4

These authors contributed equally

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