[HTML][HTML] Vaccines elicit highly conserved cellular immunity to SARS-CoV-2 Omicron

J Liu, A Chandrashekar, D Sellers, J Barrett… - Nature, 2022 - nature.com
J Liu, A Chandrashekar, D Sellers, J Barrett, C Jacob-Dolan, M Lifton, K McMahan…
Nature, 2022nature.com
The highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B. 1.1. 529) variant has been shown to evade a
substantial fraction of neutralizing antibody responses elicited by current vaccines that
encode the WA1/2020 spike protein. Cellular immune responses, particularly CD8+ T cell
responses, probably contribute to protection against severe SARS-CoV-2 infection,,,–. Here
we show that cellular immunity induced by current vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is highly
conserved to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron spike protein. Individuals who received the Ad26 …
Abstract
The highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant has been shown to evade a substantial fraction of neutralizing antibody responses elicited by current vaccines that encode the WA1/2020 spike protein. Cellular immune responses, particularly CD8+ T cell responses, probably contribute to protection against severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, , , –. Here we show that cellular immunity induced by current vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is highly conserved to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron spike protein. Individuals who received the Ad26.COV2.S or BNT162b2 vaccines demonstrated durable spike-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses, which showed extensive cross-reactivity against both the Delta and the Omicron variants, including in central and effector memory cellular subpopulations. Median Omicron spike-specific CD8+ T cell responses were 82–84% of the WA1/2020 spike-specific CD8+ T cell responses. These data provide immunological context for the observation that current vaccines still show robust protection against severe disease with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant despite the substantially reduced neutralizing antibody responses,.
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