Spike-specific T cells are enriched in breastmilk following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination

  1. Blair Armistead
  2. Yonghou Jiang
  3. Marc Carlson
  4. Emily S. Ford
  5. Saumya Jani
  6. John Houck
  7. Xia Wu
  8. Lichen Jing
  9. Tiffany Pecor
  10. Alisa Kachikis
  11. Winnie Yeung
  12. Tina Nguyen
  13. Rene Coig
  14. Nana Minkah
  15. Sasha E. Larsen
  16. Rhea N. Coler
  17. David M. Koelle
  18. Whitney E. Harrington

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.mucimm.2023.01.003
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.03.21267036v2 on medRxiv
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.03.21267036: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Cohort: Lactating individuals (n = 24) were recruited as part of the Center for Global Infectious Disease Research Biorespository, approved by the Seattle Children’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) (STUDY00002048).
    Sex as a biological variableAll participants self-reported as healthy, not pregnant, and weighing > 110 pounds.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data were analyzed on FlowJo version 10 (BD), and included analysis of memory markers and mucosal markers.
    FlowJo
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study had several limitations. BMC T cells were low frequency, and although we designed our experimental approach to maximize the information obtained from each sample, the sampling depth of BMC versus PBMC was different. However, we took advantage of several computational solutions to overcome this challenge. We were further limited to bulk TCRβ sequencing of combined CD4+ and CD8+ populations, as the number of each sub-population was too small to meet technical requirements to analyze separately. However, the CD4+ and CD8+ frequencies in BMC were similar to PBMC, suggesting that differences in the TCRβ repertoire we observed cannot be explained by a difference in these populations. The number of T cells recovered from each breastmilk limited our ability to conduct functional analyses. However, we took advantage of individuals who received a 3rd dose of vaccine to demonstrate expansion of Spike-specific T cells with tetramer staining. We demonstrate that breastmilk T cells are highly diverse and enriched for mucosal memory populations, emphasizing that the breast represents a underrecognized site of mucosal immunity. Further, we identify SARS2 Spike-specific T cells in mRNA vaccinated individuals, the first demonstration of vaccine-specific T cells in breastmilk. This observation may have important implications for both the study of vaccine-induced T cell responses in the vaccinated individual, as well as for infant passive protection.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on pages 29, 20 and 21. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.03.21267036v1 on medRxiv