Dynamics of antibody response to BNT162b2 vaccine after six months: a longitudinal prospective study

BACKGROUND

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines have proven high efficacy, however, limited data exists on the duration of immune responses and their relation to age and side effects.

METHODS

We studied the antibody and memory T cell responses after the two-dose BNT162b2 vaccine in 122 volunteers up to 6 months and correlated the findings with age and side effects.

FINDINGS

We found a robust antibody response to Spike protein after the second dose. However, the antibody levels declined at 12 weeks and 6 months post-vaccination, indicating a waning of the immune response over time. At 6 months after the second dose, the Spike antibody levels were similar to the levels in persons vaccinated with one dose or in COVID-19 convalescent individuals. The antibodies efficiently blocked ACE2 receptor binding to SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein of five variants of concern at one week but this was decreased at three months. 87% of individuals developed Spike-specific memory T cell responses, which were lower in individuals with increased proportions of immunosenescent CD8+ TEMRA cells. We found antibody response to correlate negatively with age and positively with the total score of vaccination side effects.

INTERPRETATION

The mRNA vaccine induces a strong antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 and five VOCs at 1 week post-vaccination that decreases thereafter. T cell responses, although detectable in the majority, were lower in individuals with higher T cell immunosenescence. The deterioration of vaccine response suggests the need to monitor for the potential booster vaccination.

Longitudinal proteomic profiling reveals increased early inflammation and sustained apoptosis proteins in severe COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2 infection has a risk to develop into life-threatening COVID-19 disease. Whereas age, hypertension, and chronic inflammatory conditions are risk factors, underlying host factors and markers for disease severity, e.g. requiring intensive care unit (ICU) treatment, remain poorly defined. To this end, we longitudinally profiled blood inflammation markers, antibodies, and 101 plasma proteins of hospitalized COVID-19 patients who did or did not require ICU admission. While essentially all patients displayed SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies and virus-neutralization capacity within 12-15 days, a rapid, mostly transient upregulation of selective inflammatory markers including IL-6, CXCL10, CXCL11, IFNγ, IL-10, and monocyte-attracting CCL2, CCL7 and CCL8, was particularly evident in ICU patients. In addition, there was consistent and sustained upregulation of apoptosis-associated proteins CASP8, TNFSF14, HGF, and TGFB1, with HGF discriminating between ICU and non-ICU cohorts. Thus, COVID-19 is associated with a selective inflammatory milieu within which the apoptotic pathway is a cardinal feature with potential to aid risk-based patient stratification.

LIPS method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to spike and nucleocapsid proteins

Profiling antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 can help to assess potential immune response after COVID-19 disease. Luciferase IP system (LIPS) assay is a sensitive method for quantitative detection of antibodies to antigens in their native conformation. We here describe LIPS to detect antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins in COVID-19 patients. The antibodies targeted both S and N fragments and gave a high assay sensitivity by identifying 26 out of 26 COVID-19 patients with N antigen or with three protein fragments when combined into a single reaction. The assay correlated well with ELISA method and was specific to COVID-19 as we saw no reactivity among uninfected healthy controls. Our results show that LIPS is a rapid and measurable method to screen antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 antigens.