B and T Cell Response to SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Health Care Professionals With and Without Previous COVID-19

Background: In recent months numerous health care professional acquired COVID-19 at the workplace resulting in significant shortages in medical and nursing staff. We investigated how prior COVID-19 affects SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and how such knowledge could facilitate frugal vaccination strategies.Methods: In a cohort of 41 healthcare professionals with (n=14) and without (n=27) previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, we assessed the immune status before, during and after vaccination with BNT162b2. The humoral immune response was assessed by receptor binding domain ELISA and different SARS-CoV-2 neutralisation assays using wildtype and pseudo-typed viruses. T cell immunity against SARS-CoV-2 surface and nucleocapsid peptides were studied using interferon g release assays and intracellular flow cytometry. Vaccine-related side effects were captured. Findings: Prior COVID-19 resulted in improved vaccine responses both in the B and T cell compartment. In vaccine recipients with prior COVID-19, the first vaccine dose induced high antibody concentrations comparable to seronegative vaccine recipients after two injections. This translated into more efficient neutralisation of virus particles, even more pronounced than expected from the RBD ELISA results. Furthermore, T cell responses were stronger in convalescents and particularly strong against the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein.Interpretation: Herein, we corroborate recent findings suggesting that in convalescents a single vaccine dose may be sufficient to boost adequate protection against SARS-CoV-2. New spike mutated virus variants render the highly conserved nucleocapsid protein – eliciting strong SARS-CoV-2 specific T cell immunity – an interesting additional vaccine target.Funding: Christian Doppler Research Association, Johannes Kepler University LinzDeclaration of Interests: TRK and MF are employees of Baxter AG, Vienna, Austria, now part of the Takeda group of companies and have Takeda stock interest. All other authors declare no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the ethics committee of the Johannes Kepler University Linz (EC-No. 1322/2020) and informed consent was obtained from all study subjects.