Spike BATTLE: Simultaneous evaluation of antigen-specific B and T lymphocytes following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent mRNA vaccination

Abstract

Abstract The development of effective vaccines and therapies against viral diseases requires reliable approaches for assessing durable immunological memory. Although a wealth of information is available from peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples, Conventional methods for quantifying and phenotyping antigen-specific lymphocytes can rapidly deplete irreplaceable specimens. This is due to the fact that antigen-specific T and B cells have historically been analyzed in independent assays each requiring millions of cells. A technique that facilitates the simultaneous detection of antigen-specific T and B cells would allow for more thorough immune profiling with significantly reduced sample requirements. To this end, we developed the B And T cell Tandem Lymphocyte Evaluation (BATTLE) assay, which allows for the simultaneous identification of SARS-CoV-2 Spike reactive T and B cells using an optimized Activation Induced Marker (AIM) T cell assay and a dual-color B cell antigen probes. Using this assay, we demonstrate that antigen-specific B and T cell subsets can be identified simultaneously using conventional flow cytometry platforms and provide insight into the differential effects of mRNA vaccination on B and T cell populations following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection. While spike-specific B cell and CD8+ T cell responses were higher following mRNA vaccination than natural infection alone, the quantity of CD4+ T cells recognizing spike was enhanced only in subjects with low responses to natural infection. Our findings suggest divergent patterns of B and T cell subset mobilization with repeated antigen encounter and highlight the utility of examining these populations in concert. Supported by the State of New York.