Humoral and cellular immune memory to four COVID-19 vaccines

Abstract

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; cellular immunity; humoral immunity; immune memory.