Institute of Virology, Helmholtz-Zentrum München/Technical University of Munich, School of Medicine, Munich, Germany.
Institute of Molecular Immunology and Experimental Oncology, Technical University of Munich, School of Medicine, Munich, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jan 10;13(1):153. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27649-y.
Anti-viral immunity continuously declines over time after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, we characterize the dynamics of anti-viral immunity during long-term follow-up and after BNT162b2 mRNA-vaccination in convalescents after asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection. Virus-specific and virus-neutralizing antibody titers rapidly declined in convalescents over 9 months after infection, whereas virus-specific cytokine-producing polyfunctional T cells persisted, among which IL-2-producing T cells correlated with virus-neutralizing antibody titers. Among convalescents, 5% of individuals failed to mount long-lasting immunity after infection and showed a delayed response to vaccination compared to 1% of naïve vaccinees, but successfully responded to prime/boost vaccination. During the follow-up period, 8% of convalescents showed a selective increase in virus-neutralizing antibody titers without accompanying increased frequencies of circulating SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells. The same convalescents, however, responded to vaccination with simultaneous increase in antibody and T cell immunity revealing the strength of mRNA-vaccination to increase virus-specific immunity in convalescents.
SARS-CoV-2 感染后，抗病毒免疫力会随时间持续下降。在这里，我们描述了无症状或轻症 SARS-CoV-2 感染后恢复期个体在长期随访期间及 BNT162b2 mRNA 疫苗接种后的抗病毒免疫动态。感染后 9 个月内，恢复期个体的病毒特异性和中和抗体滴度迅速下降，而病毒特异性细胞因子产生的多功能 T 细胞持续存在，其中产生 IL-2 的 T 细胞与中和抗体滴度相关。在恢复期个体中，有 5%的个体在感染后未能产生持久免疫力，且与未感染的疫苗接种者相比，对疫苗的反应延迟，但成功地对加强针疫苗产生了应答。在随访期间，有 8%的恢复期个体表现出病毒中和抗体滴度的选择性增加，而循环 SARS-CoV-2 特异性 T 细胞的频率没有相应增加。然而，这些相同的恢复期个体对疫苗接种的反应是抗体和 T 细胞免疫同时增加，这揭示了 mRNA 疫苗在增强恢复期个体病毒特异性免疫方面的强大效力。
