key: cord-0717843-zbzpdo74
authors: Dolff, Sebastian; Baotong, Zhou; Korth, Johannes; De, Luo; Yang, Dai; Jahn, Michael; Dorsch, Oliver; Anastasiou, Olympia Evdoxia; Witzke, Oliver; Kribben, Andreas; Wilde, Benjamin
title: Evidence of Cell Mediated Immune response in kidney transplants with negative mRNA-1273 Antibody Response
date: 2021-05-23
journal: Kidney Int
DOI: 10.1016/j.kint.2021.05.013
sha: 4dd23f08b82579953fcd5185666f275aac7f2e5f
doc_id: 717843
cord_uid: zbzpdo74

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Benotmane and colleagues have demonstrated that only 48% of renal transplant patients (RTxP) develop a serological response after vaccination with an mRNA-based SARS-COV2 vaccine 1 . Likewise, we reported that only 22% of RTxP develop anti-SARS-COV-2 IgG after vaccination with the mRNA-based SARS-COV-2 vaccine BNT162b2 2 . To further characterize the immunological response, we measured the cellular response to BNT162b2 vaccination in seven RTxP with triple immunosuppression lacking anti-SARS-COV-2 IgG after vaccination with two dosages of BNT162b2 (measured 18-60 days after second dose). For that purpose, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated from patients and stimulated with overlapping peptide pools for SARS-COV-2 spike protein according to previously published protocols 3 . In all seven patients, S-protein-reactive T-helper-cells were detected (Figure 1 ). All patients harboured IL-2 producing S-protein-reactive T-helper-cells (Figure 1 , 39 ±11% of S-protein-reactive T-helper-cells) and in six of the seven patients, IFNγ pos S-protein-reactive T-helper-cells were present (13 ±11% of S-protein-reactive T-helper-cells).

Thus, in all of the seven RTxP, a cellular S-protein-specific immune response was induced by vaccination despite the lack of S-protein-specific antibodies. The presence of a vaccineinduced T-cell response indicates that mRNA vaccines may well confer T-cell mediated vaccine-specific immunity in immunocompromised patients. Taken together, these findings underscore the importance for a comprehensive immune monitoring and the need for individualized schemes for booster vaccinations in this susceptible patient cohort.

Low immunization rates among kidney transplant recipients who received two doses of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine

Impaired humoral response in renal transplant recipients to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination with BNT162b2

SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses and correlations with COVID-19 patient predisposition

Nothing to acknowledge.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest Funding BW was funded by the Dr. Werner Jackstädt-Stiftung, OW received funding from the Rudolf Ackermann-Stiftung.

Ethics approval was obtained from the local institutional review board and all patients provided written informed consent.