Vaccines elicit highly conserved cellular immunity to SARS-CoV-2 Omicron

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 603; no. 7901; pp. 493 - 496
• Main Authors: Liu, Jinyan, Chandrashekar, Abishek, Sellers, Daniel, Barrett, Julia, Jacob-Dolan, Catherine, Lifton, Michelle, McMahan, Katherine, Sciacca, Michaela, VanWyk, Haley, Wu, Cindy, Yu, Jingyou, Collier, Ai-Ris Y, Barouch, Dan H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 17.03.2022; Nature Publishing Group UK
• Subjects: Antibodies; Antibodies, Neutralizing - immunology; Antibodies, Viral - immunology; CD4 antigen; CD8 antigen; Cell-mediated immunity; COVID-19 - immunology; COVID-19 - virology; COVID-19 Vaccines - immunology; Cross Reactions - immunology; Cross-reactivity; Cytokines; Humans; Immunity; Immunity, Cellular; Immunity, Humoral; Immunology; Lymphocytes; Lymphocytes T; Memory cells; Mutation; Neutralizing; Proteins; SARS-CoV-2 - chemistry; SARS-CoV-2 - classification; SARS-CoV-2 - immunology; Severe acute respiratory syndrome; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus - chemistry; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus - immunology; Spike protein; Subpopulations; T-Lymphocytes - immunology; Vaccines; Viral infections
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04465-y

The highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant has been shown to evade a substantial fraction of neutralizing antibody responses elicited by current vaccines that encode the WA1/2020 spike protein . Cellular immune responses, particularly CD8 T cell responses, probably contribute to protection against severe SARS-CoV-2 infection . Here we show that cellular immunity induced by current vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is highly conserved to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron spike protein. Individuals who received the Ad26.COV2.S or BNT162b2 vaccines demonstrated durable spike-specific CD8 and CD4 T cell responses, which showed extensive cross-reactivity against both the Delta and the Omicron variants, including in central and effector memory cellular subpopulations. Median Omicron spike-specific CD8 T cell responses were 82-84% of the WA1/2020 spike-specific CD8 T cell responses. These data provide immunological context for the observation that current vaccines still show robust protection against severe disease with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant despite the substantially reduced neutralizing antibody responses .