Immunogenicity and Reactogenicity of Heterologous ChAdOx1 NCoV-19/mRNA Vaccination

Overview

Journal Nat Med

Specialties General Medicine
Molecular Biology

Date 2021 Jul 27

PMID 34312554

Citations 205

Authors

Tina Schmidt

Verena Klemis

David Schub

Janine Mihm

Franziska Hielscher

Stefanie Marx

Amina Abu-Omar

Laura Ziegler

Candida Guckelmus

Rebecca Urschel

Sophie Schneitler

Soren L Becker

Barbara C Gartner

Urban Sester

Martina Sester

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Heterologous priming with the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vector vaccine followed by boosting with a messenger RNA vaccine (BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273) is currently recommended in Germany, although data on immunogenicity and reactogenicity are not available. In this observational study we show that, in healthy adult individuals (n = 96), the heterologous vaccine regimen induced spike-specific IgG, neutralizing antibodies and spike-specific CD4 T cells, the levels of which which were significantly higher than after homologous vector vaccine boost (n = 55) and higher or comparable in magnitude to homologous mRNA vaccine regimens (n = 62). Moreover, spike-specific CD8 T cell levels after heterologous vaccination were significantly higher than after both homologous regimens. Spike-specific T cells were predominantly polyfunctional with largely overlapping cytokine-producing phenotypes in all three regimens. Recipients of both the homologous vector regimen and the heterologous vector/mRNA combination reported greater reactogenicity following the priming vector vaccination, whereas heterologous boosting was well tolerated and comparable to homologous mRNA boosting. Taken together, heterologous vector/mRNA boosting induces strong humoral and cellular immune responses with acceptable reactogenicity profiles.

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