Vaccine-induced protection against SARS-CoV-2 requires IFN-γ-driven cellular immune response.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37301910.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-39096-y and PMC identifier 10257169.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The overall success of worldwide mass vaccination in limiting the negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemics is inevitable, however, recent SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, especially Omicron and its sub-lineages, efficiently evade humoral immunity mounted upon vaccination or previous infection. Thus, it is an important question whether these variants, or vaccines against them, induce anti-viral cellular immunity. Here we show that the mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 induces robust protective immunity in K18-hACE2 transgenic B-cell deficient (μMT) mice. We further demonstrate that the protection is attributed to cellular immunity depending on robust IFN-γ production. Viral challenge with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 and BA.5.2 sub-variants induce boosted cellular responses in vaccinated μMT mice, which highlights the significance of cellular immunity against the ever-emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants evading antibody-mediated immunity. Our work, by providing evidence that BNT162b2 can induce significant protective immunity in mice that are unable to produce antibodies, thus highlights the importance of cellular immunity in the protection against SARS-CoV-2.
Medical subject headings
- COVID-19
- Immunity, Cellular
- COVID-19 Vaccines