Humoral and cellular immune responses to CoronaVac up to one year after vaccination

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Abstract

Coronavac is a widely used SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccine, but its long-term immune response assessment is still lacking. We evaluated SARS-CoV-2-specific immune responses, including T cell activation markers, antigen-specific cytokine production and antibody response following vaccination in 53 adult and elderly individuals participating in a phase 3 clinical trial. Activated follicular helper T (Tfh), non-Tfh and memory CD4 + T cells were detected in almost all subjects early after the first vaccine dose. Activated memory CD4 + T cells were predominantly of central and effector memory T cell phenotypes and were sustained for at least 6 months. We also detected a balanced Th1-, Th2- and Th17/Th22-type cytokine production that was associated with response over time, together with particular cytokine profile linked to poor responses in older vaccinees. SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG levels peaked 14 days after the second dose and were mostly stable over one year. CoronaVac was able to induce a potent and durable antiviral antigen-specific cellular response and the cytokine profiles related to the response over time and impacted by the senescence were defined.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.16.22272513: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: All participants provided written informed consent.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationPROFISCOV phase 3 clinical trial: To assess the safety and efficacy of the CoronaVac vaccine in Brazil, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 multicenter clinical trial was performed in healthy healthcare professionals on the front line of COVID-19 patients treatment.
    BlindingStudy design and participants: After the breaking of the participants’ blinding code, these 120 individuals were filtered based on vaccination status, age and specimen availability to compose the cohort used to assess cellular and humoral response after immunization with CoronaVac.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Cells were incubated with 0,5μg/mL anti-CD40 antibody (Miltenyi Biotec, NRW, Germany) and then stimulated in the presence of specific MPs (1μg/mL), 10μL/mL positive control phytohemagglutinin (PHA, Sigma-Aldrich, Darmstadt, Germany) or 0.1% negative control dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO, Sigma-Aldrich, Darmstadt, Germany).
    anti-CD40
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    CoronaVac (Sinovac Life Sciences, Beijing, China) is an inactivated vaccine derived from the CN02 strain of SARS-CoV-2 grown in Vero cells.
    Vero
    suggested: CLS Cat# 605372/p622_VERO, RRID:CVCL_0059)
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Acquisition was performed with the BD FACSDiva™ Software v6.0 and FlowJo™ v10.8 was used for data analysis (both from BD Biosciences, CA, USA).
    BD FACSDiva™
    suggested: (BD FACSDiva Software, RRID:SCR_001456)
    FlowJo™
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)
    Binding antibody (bAb) assay: Plasma samples were tested for quantitative IgG bAbs against nine SARS-CoV-2 antigens: S, RBD and N from the Wuhan/WH04/2020 strain and S and RBD from the VOCs Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351) and Gamma (
    Gamma
    suggested: (GAMMA, RRID:SCR_009484)
    Statistical analysis: Graphs and statistical analysis were performed at GraphPad Prism version 9.0.0 for Windows (GraphPad Software, CA, USA).
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)
    GraphPad
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04456595Active, not recruitingClinical Trial of Efficacy and Safety of Sinovac's Adsorbed …


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


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    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.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    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.