SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 triggers a consistent cross-variant humoral and cellular response

oleh: D. Mileto, C. Fenizia, M. Cutrera, G. Gagliardi, A. Gigantiello, A. De Silvestri, A. Rizzo, A. Mancon, M. Bianchi, F. De Poli, M. Cuomo, I. Burgo, M. Longo, S. G. Rimoldi, C. Pagani, S. Grosso, V. Micheli, G. Rizzardini, R. Grande, M. Biasin, M. R. Gismondo, A. Lombardi

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Taylor & Francis Group 2021-01-01

Deskripsi

As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic continues to rage worldwide, the emergence of numerous variants of concern (VOC) represents a challenge for the vaccinal protective efficacy and the reliability of commercially available high-throughput immunoassays. Our study demonstrates the administration of two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine that elicited a robust SARS-CoV-2-specific immune response which was assessed up to 3 months after full vaccination in a cohort of 37 health care workers (HCWs). SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody response, evaluated by four commercially available chemiluminescence immunoassays (CLIA), was qualitatively consistent with the results provided by the gold-standard in vitro neutralization assay (NTA). However, we could not observe a correlation between the quantity of the antibody detected by CLIA assays and their neutralizing activity tested by NTA. Almost all subjects developed a SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell response. Moreover, vaccinated HCWs developed a similar protective neutralizing antibodies response against the EU (B.1), Alpha (B.1.1.7), Gamma (P.1), and Eta (B.1.525) SARS-CoV-2 variants, while Beta (B.1.351) and Delta (B.1.617.2) strains displayed a consistent partial immune evasion. These results underline the importance of a solid vaccine-elicited immune response and a robust antibody titre. We believe that these relevant results should be taken into consideration in the definition of future vaccinal strategies.