scholarly journals Distinct immune cell dynamics mark adverse events and antibody responses of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine

Author(s):  
Tomohiro Takano ◽  
Miwa Morikawa ◽  
Yu Adachi ◽  
Kiyomi Kabasawa ◽  
Nicolas Sax ◽  
...  

Abstract Pfizer/BioNTec BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine robustly elicits neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in clinical trials and real-world settings. However, booster vaccinations are frequently associated with self-limited adverse events. Here, by applying a high-dimensional immune profiling approach to peripheral blood, we linked early vaccine-induced immune dynamics with adverse events and neutralizing antibody responses. The dynamics of two dendritic cell subsets (DC3s and AS-DCs) were identified as the specific correlates for adverse events; the combination of these cell dynamics stratified the vaccinees with severe reactogenicity, while the stratification did not affect the neutralizing antibody titers. Furthermore, the NKT-like cell dynamics that correlated with adverse events and antibody titers were accounted for distinct magnitudes of both events by sex and age. The identified immune correlates for adverse events and antibody responses may pave the way for a rational vaccine strategy for reducing the reactogenicity of mRNA vaccines without compromising the immunogenicity.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noa Eliakim Raz ◽  
Amos Stemmer ◽  
Yaara Leibovici-Weissman ◽  
Asaf Ness ◽  
Muhammad Awwad ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Age and frailty are strong predictors of COVID-19 mortality. After the second BNT162b2 dose, immunity wanes faster in older (≥65 years) versus younger adults. The durability of response after the third vaccine is unclear. METHODS This prospective cohort study included healthcare workers/family members ≥60 years who received a third BNT162b2 dose. Blood samples were drawn immediately before (T0), 10-19 (T1), and 74-103 (T2) days after the third dose. Antispike IgG titers were determined using a commercial assay, seropositivity was defined as ≥50 AU/mL. Neutralizing antibody titers were determined at T2. Adverse events, COVID-19 infections, and clinical frailty scale (CFS) levels were documented. RESULTS The analysis included 97 participants (median age, 70 years [IQR, 66-74], 61% women, 58% CFS level 2). IgG titers, which increased significantly from T0 to T1 (medians, 440 AU/mL [IQR, 294-923] and 25,429 [14,203-36,114] AU/mL, respectively; P<0.001), decreased significantly by T2, but all remained seropositive (median, 8,306 AU/mL [IQR, 4595-14,701], P<0.001 vs T1). In a multivariable analysis, only time from the first vaccine was significantly associated with lower IgG levels at T2 (P=0.004). At T2, 60 patients were evaluated for neutralizing antibodies; all were seropositive (median, 1,294 antibody titer [IQR, 848-2,072]). Neutralizing antibody and antispike IgG levels were correlated (R=0.6, P<0.001). No major adverse events or COVID-19 infections were reported. CONCLUSIONS Antispike IgG and neutralizing antibodies levels remain adequate 3 months after the third BNT162b2 vaccine in healthy adults ≥60 years, although the decline in IgG is concerning. A third vaccine dose in this population should be top priority.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth E. McCarthy ◽  
Pamela M. Odorizzi ◽  
Emma Lutz ◽  
Carolyn P. Smullin ◽  
Iliana Tenvooren ◽  
...  

Although the formation of a durable neutralizing antibody response after an acute viral infection is a key component of protective immunity, little is known about why some individuals generate high versus low neutralizing antibody titers to infection or vaccination. Infection with Zika virus (ZIKV) during pregnancy can cause devastating fetal outcomes, and efforts to understand natural immunity to this infection are essential for optimizing vaccine design. In this study, we leveraged the high-dimensional single-cell profiling capacity of mass cytometry (CyTOF) to deeply characterize the cellular immune response to acute and convalescent ZIKV infection in a cohort of blood donors in Puerto Rico incidentally found to be viremic during the 2015-2016 epidemic in the Americas. During acute ZIKV infection, we identified widely coordinated responses across innate and adaptive immune cell lineages. High frequencies of multiple activated innate immune subsets, as well as activated follicular helper CD4+ T cells and proliferating CD27-IgD- B cells, during acute infection were associated with high titers of ZIKV neutralizing antibodies at 6 months post-infection. On the other hand, low titers of ZIKV neutralizing antibodies were associated with immune features that suggested a cytotoxic-skewed immune "set-point." Our study offers insight into the cellular coordination of immune responses and identifies candidate cellular biomarkers that may offer predictive value in vaccine efficacy trials for ZIKV and other acute viral infections aimed at inducing high titers of neutralizing antibodies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Fendler ◽  
Lewis Au ◽  
Scott Shepherd ◽  
Fiona Byrne ◽  
Maddalena Cerrone ◽  
...  

Abstract Patients with cancer have higher COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Here we present the prospective CAPTURE study (NCT03226886) integrating longitudinal immune profiling with clinical annotation. Of 357 patients with cancer, 118 were SARS-CoV-2-positive, 94 were symptomatic and 2 patients died of COVID-19. In this cohort, 83% patients had S1-reactive antibodies, 82% had neutralizing antibodies against WT, whereas neutralizing antibody titers (NAbT) against the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants were substantially reduced. Whereas S1-reactive antibody levels decreased in 13% of patients, NAbT remained stable up to 329 days. Patients also had detectable SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells and CD4+ responses correlating with S1-reactive antibody levels, although patients with hematological malignancies had impaired immune responses that were disease and treatment-specific, but presented compensatory cellular responses, further supported by clinical. Overall, these findings advance the understanding of the nature and duration of immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in patients with cancer.


Author(s):  
Abigail E. Powell ◽  
Kaiming Zhang ◽  
Mrinmoy Sanyal ◽  
Shaogeng Tang ◽  
Payton A. Weidenbacher ◽  
...  

AbstractDevelopment of a safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is a public health priority. We designed subunit vaccine candidates using self-assembling ferritin nanoparticles displaying one of two multimerized SARS-CoV-2 spikes: full-length ectodomain (S-Fer) or a C-terminal 70 amino-acid deletion (SΔC-Fer). Ferritin is an attractive nanoparticle platform for production of vaccines and ferritin-based vaccines have been investigated in humans in two separate clinical trials. We confirmed proper folding and antigenicity of spike on the surface of ferritin by cryo-EM and binding to conformation-specific monoclonal antibodies. After a single immunization of mice with either of the two spike ferritin particles, a lentiviral SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus assay revealed mean neutralizing antibody titers at least 2-fold greater than those in convalescent plasma from COVID-19 patients. Additionally, a single dose of SΔC-Fer elicited significantly higher neutralizing responses as compared to immunization with the spike receptor binding domain (RBD) monomer or spike ectodomain trimer alone. After a second dose, mice immunized with SΔC-Fer exhibited higher neutralizing titers than all other groups. Taken together, these results demonstrate that multivalent presentation of SARS-CoV-2 spike on ferritin can notably enhance elicitation of neutralizing antibodies, thus constituting a viable strategy for single-dose vaccination against COVID-19.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J Tighe ◽  
Richard A Urbanowicz ◽  
Lucy Fairclough ◽  
C Patrick McClure ◽  
Brian J Thomson ◽  
...  

COVID-19 continues to cause a pandemic, having infected more than 20 million people globally. Successful elimination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus will require an effective vaccine. However, the immune correlates of infection are currently poorly understood. While neutralizing antibodies are believed to be essential for protection against infection, the contribution of the neutralizing antibody response to resolution of SARS-CoV-2 infection has not yet been defined. In this study the antibody responses to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and nucleocapsid proteins were investigated in a UK patient cohort, using optimised immunoassays and a retrovirus-based pseudotype entry assay. It was discovered that in severe COVID-19 infections an early antibody response to both antigens was associated with improved prognosis of infection. While not all SARS-CoV-2-reactive sera were found to possess neutralizing antibodies, neutralizing potency of sera was found to be greater in patients who went on to resolve infection, compared with those that died from COVID-19. Furthermore, viral genetic variation in spike protein was found to influence the production of neutralizing antibodies. Infection with the recently described spike protein variant 614G produced higher levels of neutralizing antibodies when compared to viruses possessing the 614D variant. These findings support the assertion that vaccines targeting generation of neutralizing antibodies may be useful at limiting SARS-CoV-2 infection. Assessment of the antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 at time of diagnosis will be a useful addition to the diagnostic toolkit, enabling stratification of clinical intervention for severe COVID-19 disease.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena J. Markmann ◽  
Natasa Giallourou ◽  
D. Ryan Bhowmik ◽  
Yixuan J. Hou ◽  
Aaron Lerner ◽  
...  

AbstractThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has now caused over 2 million deaths worldwide and continues to expand. Currently, much is unknown about functionally neutralizing human antibody responses and durability to SARS-CoV-2. Using convalescent sera collected from 101 COVID-19 recovered individuals 21-212 days after symptom onset with forty-eight additional longitudinal samples, we measured functionality and durability of serum antibodies. We also evaluated associations between individual demographic and clinical parameters with functional neutralizing antibody responses to COVID-19. We found robust antibody durability out to six months, as well as significant positive associations with the magnitude of the neutralizing antibody response and male sex. We also show that SARS-CoV-2 convalescent neutralizing antibodies are higher in individuals with cardio-metabolic comorbidities.SignificanceIn this study we found that neutralizing antibody responses in COVID-19 convalescent individuals vary in magnitude but are durable and correlate well with RBD Ig binding antibody levels compared to other SARS-CoV-2 antigen responses. In our cohort, higher neutralizing antibody titers are independently and significantly associated with male sex compared to female sex. We also show for the first time, that higher convalescent antibody titers in male donors are associated with increased age and symptom grade. Furthermore, cardio-metabolic co-morbidities are associated with higher antibody titers independently of sex. Here, we present an in-depth evaluation of serologic, demographic, and clinical correlates of functional antibody responses and durability to SARS-CoV-2.


2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (17) ◽  
pp. 9190-9202 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Trujillo ◽  
N. M. Kumpula-McWhirter ◽  
K. J. Hötzel ◽  
M. Gonzalez ◽  
W. P. Cheevers

ABSTRACT This study evaluated type-specific and cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies induced by immunization with modified surface glycoproteins (SU) of the 63 isolate of caprine arthritis-encephalitis lentivirus (CAEV-63). Epitope mapping of sera from CAEV-infected goats localized immunodominant linear epitopes in the carboxy terminus of SU. Two modified SU (SU-M and SU-T) and wild-type CAEV-63 SU (SU-W) were produced in vaccinia virus and utilized to evaluate the effects of glycosylation or the deletion of immunodominant linear epitopes on neutralizing antibody responses induced by immunization. SU-M contained two N-linked glycosylation sites inserted into the target epitopes by R539S and E542N mutations. SU-T was truncated at 518A, upstream from the target epitopes, by introduction of termination codons at 519Y and 521Y. Six yearling Saanen goats were immunized subcutaneously with 30 μg of SU-W, SU-M, or SU-T in Quil A adjuvant and boosted at 3, 7, and 16 weeks. SU antibody titers determined by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay demonstrated anamnestic responses after each boost. Wild-type and modified SU-induced type-specific CAEV-63 neutralizing antibodies and cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies against CAEV-Co, a virus isolate closely related to CAEV-63, and CAEV-1g5, an isolate geographically distinct from CAEV-63, were determined. Immunization with SU-T resulted in altered recognition of SU linear epitopes and a 2.8- to 4.6-fold decrease in neutralizing antibody titers against CAEV-63, CAEV-Co, and CAEV-1g5 compared to titers of SU-W-immunized goats. In contrast, immunization with SU-M resulted in reduced recognition of glycosylated epitopes and a 2.4- to 2.7-fold increase in neutralizing antibody titers compared to titers of SU-W-immunized goats. Thus, the glycosylation of linear immunodominant nonneutralization epitopes, but not epitope deletion, is an effective strategy to enhance neutralizing antibody responses by immunization.


2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (7) ◽  
pp. 3751-3768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Rafii-El-Idrissi Benhnia ◽  
Megan M. McCausland ◽  
Hua-Poo Su ◽  
Kavita Singh ◽  
Julia Hoffmann ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The smallpox vaccine is widely considered the gold standard for human vaccines, yet the key antibody targets in humans remain unclear. We endeavored to identify a stereotypic, dominant, mature virion (MV) neutralizing antibody target in humans which could be used as a diagnostic serological marker of protective humoral immunity induced by the smallpox vaccine (vaccinia virus [VACV]). We have instead found that diversity is a defining characteristic of the human antibody response to the smallpox vaccine. We show that H3 is the most immunodominant VACV neutralizing antibody target, as determined by correlation analysis of immunoglobulin G (IgG) specificities to MV neutralizing antibody titers. It was determined that purified human anti-H3 IgG is sufficient for neutralization of VACV; however, depletion or blockade of anti-H3 antibodies revealed no significant reduction in neutralization activity, showing anti-H3 IgG is not required in vaccinated humans (or mice) for neutralization of MV. Comparable results were obtained for human (and mouse) anti-L1 IgG and even for anti-H3 and anti-L1 IgG in combination. In addition to H3 and L1, human antibody responses to D8, A27, D13, and A14 exhibited statistically significant correlations with virus neutralization. Altogether, these data indicate the smallpox vaccine succeeds in generating strong neutralizing antibody responses not by eliciting a stereotypic response to a single key antigen but instead by driving development of neutralizing antibodies to multiple viral proteins, resulting in a “safety net” of highly redundant neutralizing antibody responses, the specificities of which can vary from individual to individual. We propose that this is a fundamental attribute of the smallpox vaccine.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit J. van Gils ◽  
Ayesha H.A. Lavell ◽  
Karlijn van der Straten ◽  
Brent Appelman ◽  
Ilja Bontjer ◽  
...  

Emerging and future SARS-CoV-2 variants may jeopardize the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. We performed a head-to-head comparison of the ability of sera from individuals vaccinated with either one of four vaccines (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, AZD1222 or Ad26.COV2.S) to recognize and neutralize the four SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs; Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta). Four weeks after completing the vaccination series, SARS-CoV-2 wild-type neutralizing antibody titers were highest in recipients of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 (median titers of 1891 and 3061, respectively), and substantially lower in those vaccinated with the adenovirus vector-based vaccines AZD1222 and Ad26.COV2.S (median titers of 241 and 119, respectively). VOCs neutralization was reduced in all vaccine groups, with the largest (5.8-fold) reduction in neutralization being observed against the Beta variant. Overall, the mRNA vaccines appear superior to adenovirus vector-based vaccines in inducing neutralizing antibodies against VOCs four weeks after the final vaccination.


Author(s):  
Marco Mandolesi ◽  
Daniel J Sheward ◽  
Leo Hanke ◽  
Junjie Ma ◽  
Pradeepa Pushparaj ◽  
...  

The outbreak and spread of SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2), the cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is a current global health emergency and a prophylactic vaccine is needed urgently. The spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 mediates entry into host cells, and thus is a target for neutralizing antibodies and vaccine design. Here we show that adjuvanted protein immunization with SARS-CoV-2 spike trimers, stabilized in prefusion conformation, results in potent antibody responses in mice and rhesus macaques with neutralizing antibody titers orders of magnitude greater than those typically measured in serum from SARS-CoV-2 seropositive humans. Neutralizing antibody responses were observed after a single dose, with exceptionally high titers achieved after boosting. Furthermore, neutralizing antibody titers elicited by a dose-sparing regimen in mice were similar to those obtained from a high dose regimen. Taken together, these data strongly support the development of adjuvanted SARS-CoV-2 prefusion-stabilized spike protein subunit vaccines.


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