Journal Article

Homotypic and heterotypic immune responses to Omicron variant in immunocompromised patients in diverse clinical settings

Majchrzak-Kita, Beata, Gingras, Anne-Claude, Arbol, Berta G., Kumar, Deepali, Kulasingam, Vathany, Virk, Avneet Kaur, Ferreira, Victor H., Mavandadnejad, Faranak, Samson, Reuben, Marinelli, Tina, Hu, Queenie, Hall, Victoria G., Solera, Javier T., Ierullo, Matthew, Humar, Atul, Rod Hardy, W., Kurtesi, Alexandra

2022

Overview

Immunocompromised patients are predisposed to severe COVID-19. Here we compare homotypic and heterotypic humoral and cellular immune responses to Omicron BA.1 in organ transplant patients across a diverse clinical spectrum. We perform variant-specific pseudovirus neutralization assays for D614G, and Omicron-BA.1, -BA.2, and Delta variants. We also measure poly-and monofunctional T-cell responses to BA.1 and ancestral SARS-CoV-2 peptide pools. We identify that partially or fully-vaccinated transplant recipients after infection with Omicron BA.1 have the greatest BA.1 neutralizing antibody and BA.1-specific polyfunctional CD4 + and CD8 + T-cell responses, with potent cross-neutralization against BA.2. In these patients, the magnitude of the BA.1-directed response is comparable to immunocompetent triple-vaccinated controls. A subset of patients with pre-Omicron infection have heterotypic responses to BA.1 and BA.2, whereas uninfected transplant patients with three doses of vaccine demonstrate the weakest comparative responses. These results have implications for risk of infection, re-infection, and disease severity among immune compromised hosts with Omicron infection. Immunocompromised individuals are predisposed to severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, with transplant recipients typically displaying impaired immune response to pathogens, due to typical life-long immunosuppressive treatment. In this work, the authors evaluate the immune response to Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 in organ transplant recipients across a diverse clinical spectrum.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 13 / 13/1 / 13/109 / 13/31 / 631/250/255/2514 / 631/326/596/2553 / 631/326/596/4130 / 692/308/575 / Antibodies / CD4 antigen / CD8 antigen / COVID-19 / Health risks / Humanities and Social Sciences / Immune response / Immune response (cell-mediated) / Immune response (humoral) / Immune system / Immunocompromised hosts / Infections / Lymphocytes T / multidisciplinary / Neutralization / Patients / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 / Viral diseases