Comparison of infected and vaccinated transplant recipients highlights the role of Tfh and neutralizing IgG in COVID-19 protection

Transplant recipients, which receive therapeutic immunosuppression to prevent graft rejection, are characterized by high COVID-19-related mortality and defective response to vaccines. Having observed that previous infection by SARS-CoV-2 but not the standard “2 doses” scheme of vaccination, provided complete protection against COVID-19 to transplant recipients, we undertook this translational study to compare the cellular and humoral immune responses of these 2 groups of patients. Neutralizing anti-Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) IgG were identified as the critical immune effectors associated with protection. Generation of anti-RBD IgG was dependent upon spike-specific T follicular helper (Tfh) CD4+ T cells, which acted as limiting checkpoint. Tfh generation was impeded by high dose mycophenolate mofetil in non-responders to vaccine but not in infected patients, suggesting that increasing immunogenicity of vaccine could improve response rate to mRNA vaccine. This theory was validated in two independent prospective cohorts, in which administration of a 3 rd dose of vaccine resulted in the generation of anti-RBD IgG in half of non-responders to 2 doses. One sentence summary The generation of neutralizing IgG, which protects kidney transplant recipients from COVID-19, requires T follicular helper cells.