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

Tarke, A., Coelho, C.H., Zhang, Z., Dan, J.M., Yu, E.D., Methot, N., Bloom, N.I., Goodwin, B., Phillips, E., Mallal, S., Sidney, J., Filaci, G., Weiskopf, D., da Silva Antunes, R., Crotty, S., Grifoni, A. and Sette, A. (2022) SARS-CoV-2 vaccination induces immunological T cell memory able to cross-recognize variants from Alpha to Omicron. Cell, 185 (5). P847-859.

Abstract

We address whether T cell responses induced by different vaccine platforms (mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, Ad26.COV2.S, 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 to 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 second-level defenses against diverse variants.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Murdoch Affiliation(s):	Institute for Immunology and Infectious Diseases
Publisher:	Elsevier
Copyright:	© 2022 Elsevier Inc.
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/63676

Item Control Page