Neutralizing Immunity in Vaccine Breakthrough Infections from the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta Variants

Overview

Journal Cell

Publisher Cell Press

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2022 Apr 16

PMID 35429436

Authors

Venice Servellita

Abdullah M Syed

Mary Kate Morris

Noah Brazer

Prachi Saldhi

Miguel Garcia-Knight

Bharath Sreekumar

Mir M Khalid

Alison Ciling

Pei-Yi Chen

G Renuka Kumar

Amelia S Gliwa

Jenny Nguyen

Alicia Sotomayor-Gonzalez

Yueyuan Zhang

Edwin Frias

John Prostko

John Hackett Jr

Raul Andino

Debra A Wadford

Carl Hanson

Jennifer Doudna

Melanie Ott

Charles Y Chiu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Virus-like particle (VLP) and live virus assays were used to investigate neutralizing immunity against Delta and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants in 259 samples from 128 vaccinated individuals. Following Delta breakthrough infection, titers against WT rose 57-fold and 3.1-fold compared with uninfected boosted and unboosted individuals, respectively, versus only a 5.8-fold increase and 3.1-fold decrease for Omicron breakthrough infection. Among immunocompetent, unboosted patients, Delta breakthrough infections induced 10.8-fold higher titers against WT compared with Omicron (p = 0.037). Decreased antibody responses in Omicron breakthrough infections relative to Delta were potentially related to a higher proportion of asymptomatic or mild breakthrough infections (55.0% versus 28.6%, respectively), which exhibited 12.3-fold lower titers against WT compared with moderate to severe infections (p = 0.020). Following either Delta or Omicron breakthrough infection, limited variant-specific cross-neutralizing immunity was observed. These results suggest that Omicron breakthrough infections are less immunogenic than Delta, thus providing reduced protection against reinfection or infection from future variants.

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