Humoral immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 Spike variants after mRNA vaccination in solid organ transplant recipients

Alexandra Tauzin; Guillaume Beaudoin-Bussières; Shang Yu Gong; Debashree Chatterjee; Gabrielle Gendron-Lepage; Catherine Bourassa; Guillaume Goyette; Normand Racine; Zineb Khrifi; Julie Turgeon; Cécile Tremblay; Valérie Martel-Laferrière; Daniel E Kaufmann; Héloïse Cardinal; Marc Cloutier; Renée Bazin; Ralf Duerr; Mélanie Dieudé; Marie-Josée Hébert; Andrés Finzi

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104990

Humoral immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 Spike variants after mRNA vaccination in solid organ transplant recipients

iScience. 2022 Sep 16;25(9):104990. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104990. Epub 2022 Aug 23.

Authors

Alexandra Tauzin^{1

2}, Guillaume Beaudoin-Bussières^{1

2}, Shang Yu Gong^{1

3}, Debashree Chatterjee¹, Gabrielle Gendron-Lepage¹, Catherine Bourassa¹, Guillaume Goyette¹, Normand Racine⁴, Zineb Khrifi¹, Julie Turgeon^{1

5}, Cécile Tremblay^{1

2}, Valérie Martel-Laferrière^{1

2}, Daniel E Kaufmann^{1

6}, Héloïse Cardinal^{1

2

5}, Marc Cloutier⁷, Renée Bazin⁷, Ralf Duerr⁸, Mélanie Dieudé^{1

2

5

7}, Marie-Josée Hébert^{1

5

6}, Andrés Finzi^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Centre de Recherche du CHUM, Montreal, QC H2X 0A9, Canada.
² Département de Microbiologie, Infectiologie et Immunologie, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC H2X 0A9, Canada.
³ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
⁴ Institut Cardiologie de Montréal, Montreal, QC H1T 1C8, Canada.
⁵ Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP), Edmonton, AL T6G 2E1, Canada.
⁶ Département de Médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada.
⁷ Héma-Québec, Affaires Médicales et Innovation, Québec, QC G1V 5C3, Canada.
⁸ Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA.

Abstract

Although SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination has been shown to be safe and effective in the general population, immunocompromised solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) were reported to have impaired immune responses after one or two doses of vaccine. In this study, we examined humoral responses induced after the second and the third dose of mRNA vaccine in different SOTR (kidney, liver, lung, and heart). Compared to a cohort of SARS-CoV-2 naïve immunocompetent health care workers (HCWs), the second dose induced weak humoral responses in SOTRs, except for the liver recipients. The third dose boosted these responses but they did not reach the same level as in HCW. Interestingly, although the neutralizing activity against Delta and Omicron variants remained very low after the third dose, Fc-mediated effector functions in SOTR reached similar levels as in the HCW cohort. Whether these responses will suffice to protect SOTR from severe outcome remains to be determined.

Keywords: Immunology; Surgery; Virology.