Abstract
Vaccination is the main public health measure to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission and hospitalization, and a massive worldwide scientific effort resulted in the rapid development of effective vaccines. This work aimed to define the dynamics of humoral and cell-mediated immune response in a cohort of health care workers (HCWs) who received a two-dose BNT162b2-mRNA vaccination. The serological response was evaluated by quantifying the anti-RBD and neutralizing antibodies. The cell-mediated response was performed by a whole blood test quantifying Th1 cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-2), produced in response to spike peptides. The BNT162b2-mRNA vaccine induced both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses against spike peptides in virtually all HCWs without previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, with a moderate inverse relation with age in the anti-RBD response. Spike-specific T cells produced several Th1 cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2), which correlated with the specific-serological response. Overall, our study describes the ability of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine to elicit a coordinated neutralizing humoral and spike-specific T cell response in HCWs. Assessing the dynamics of these parameters by an easy immune monitoring protocol can allow for the evaluation of the persistence of the vaccine response in order to define the optimal vaccination strategy.
Highlights
IntroductionLarge-scale vaccination is the single most effective public health measure for the mitigation of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic
These data are confirmed in several reports focusing on health care workers (HCWs, [2,3])
We showed the ability of the BNT162b2-mRNA vaccine to induce a coordinate humoral and T cell-mediated immune response against spike peptides in virtually all healthy, young, and middle-aged adults, predominantly female, without previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, with only a moderate inverse impact of age >50 years
Summary
Large-scale vaccination is the single most effective public health measure for the mitigation of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The vaccination strategy for the BNT162b2 vaccine involves a two-dose vaccination regimen administered 21 days apart, which has been demonstrated to induce a spike protein (S)-specific humoral and cellular immunity associated with a 95% efficacy in naïve individuals [1]. These data are confirmed in several reports focusing on health care workers (HCWs, [2,3]). Humoral immune response is considered the main immune correlate of protection, but the coordination
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