Division of International Collaboration Research and Tokyo laboratory, Joint Research Center for Human Retrovirus Infection, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto/Tokyo, Japan.
AIDS Clinical Center, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Nat Commun. 2022 Sep 6;13(1):5251. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32989-4.
Long-term memory T cells have not been well analyzed in individuals vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine although analysis of these T cells is necessary to evaluate vaccine efficacy. Here, investigate HLA-A24:02-restricted CD8 T cells specific for SARS-CoV-2-derived spike (S) epitopes in individuals immunized with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine. T cells specific for the S-QI9 and S-NF9 immunodominant epitopes have higher ability to recognize epitopes than other epitope-specific T cell populations. This higher recognition of S-QI9-specific T cells is due to the high stability of the S-QI9 peptide for HLA-A24:02, whereas that of S-NF9-specific T cells results from the high affinity of T cell receptor. T cells specific for S-QI9 and S-NF9 are detectable >30 weeks after the second vaccination, indicating that the vaccine induces long-term memory T cells specific for these epitopes. Because the S-QI9 epitope is highly conserved among SARS-CoV-2 variants, S-QI9-specific T cells may help prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2 variants.
尽管分析这些 T 细胞对于评估疫苗的效果是必要的，但在接种 COVID-19 疫苗的个体中，对长期记忆 T 细胞的分析还不够完善。在这里，我们研究了接种 BNT162b2 mRNA 疫苗的个体中，HLA-A24:02 限制的针对 SARS-CoV-2 衍生的刺突 (S) 表位的 CD8 T 细胞。针对 S-QI9 和 S-NF9 免疫优势表位的 T 细胞比其他表位特异性 T 细胞群体具有更高的识别能力。S-QI9 特异性 T 细胞的这种更高识别是由于 S-QI9 肽与 HLA-A24:02 的高稳定性，而 S-NF9 特异性 T 细胞的识别则是由于 T 细胞受体的高亲和力。接种第二剂疫苗后 >30 周即可检测到针对 S-QI9 和 S-NF9 的 T 细胞，表明疫苗诱导了针对这些表位的长期记忆 T 细胞。由于 S-QI9 表位在 SARS-CoV-2 变体中高度保守，因此 S-QI9 特异性 T 细胞可能有助于预防 SARS-CoV-2 变体的感染。
