NVX-CoV2373 Vaccination Induces Functional SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T Cell Responses

Overview

Journal J Clin Invest

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2022 Aug 9

PMID 35943810

Authors

Carolyn Rydyznski Moderbacher

Christina Kim

Jose Mateus

Joyce Plested

Mingzhu Zhu

Shane Cloney-Clark

Daniela Weiskopf

Alessandro Sette

Louis Fries

Gregory Glenn

Shane Crotty

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

NVX-CoV2373 is an adjuvanted recombinant full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike trimer protein vaccine demonstrated to be protective against COVID-19 in efficacy trials. Here we demonstrate that vaccinated individuals made CD4+ T cell responses after 1 and 2 doses of NVX-CoV2373, and a subset of individuals made CD8+ T cell responses. Characterization of the vaccine-elicited CD8+ T cells demonstrated IFN-γ production. Characterization of the vaccine-elicited CD4+ T cells revealed both circulating T follicular helper (cTfh) cells and Th1 cells (IFN-γ+, TNF-α+, and IL-2+) were detectable within 7 days of the primary immunization. Spike-specific CD4+ T cells were correlated with the magnitude of the later SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing antibody titers, indicating that robust generation of CD4+ T cells, capable of supporting humoral immune responses, may be a key characteristic of NVX-CoV2373 that utilizes Matrix-M adjuvant.

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