Cited by 858SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Researchvaccines and immunoinformatics approachesT-cell and B-cell Immunology

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination induces immunological T cell memory able to cross-recognize variants from Alpha to Omicron

Open access
Tarke, Alison, Coelho, Camila H., Zhang, Zeli, Dan, Jennifer M., Yu, Esther Dawen, Methot, Nils, Bloom, Nathaniel I., Goodwin, Benjamin +9 more·2022·Cell

Abstract

We address whether T cell responses induced by different vaccine platforms (mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, Ad26.COV2.S, and NVX-CoV2373) cross-recognize early SARS-CoV-2 variants. T cell responses to early variants were preserved across vaccine platforms. By contrast, significant overall decreases were observed for memory B cells and neutralizing antibodies. In subjects ∼6 months post-vaccination, 90% (CD4+) and 87% (CD8+) of memory T cell responses were preserved against variants on average by AIM assay, and 84% (CD4+) and 85% (CD8+) preserved against Omicron. Omicron RBD memory B cell recognition was substantially reduced to 42% compared with other variants. T cell epitope repertoire analysis revealed a median of 11 and 10 spike epitopes recognized by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, with average preservation > 80% for Omicron. Functional preservation of the majority of T cell responses may play an important role as a second-level defense against diverse variants.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cell.2022.01.015

Cites

54 of 54 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Cellular immunity contributes to protection against COVID-19.

    “In addition to humoral responses, cellular immunity contributes to protection against COVID-19 and recent evidence suggests that viral-vector and mRNA vaccines elicit long-lasting S-specific or nucleoprotein-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, with broad cross-reactivity against VOCs29,30.”

    From Efficacy of an unmodified bivalent mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants in female small animal models (2023) · cites this paper as [29]

    The Introduction (page unavailable) says several lines of evidence point to potential roles for T cells in reducing COVID-19 severity and contributing to protection. That supports the direction of the claim, but the citing sentence states the contribution as established, whereas the source qualifies it as potential. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Viral-vector and mRNA vaccines elicit long-lasting S-specific or nucleoprotein-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, with broad cross-reactivity against VOCs.

    “In addition to humoral responses, cellular immunity contributes to protection against COVID-19 and recent evidence suggests that viral-vector and mRNA vaccines elicit long-lasting S-specific or nucleoprotein-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, with broad cross-reactivity against VOCs29,30.”

    From Efficacy of an unmodified bivalent mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants in female small animal models (2023) · cites this paper as [29]

    The Results section reports spike-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses after mRNA and adenoviral-vector vaccination that largely cross-recognized variants. It also documents memory responses about six months after vaccination, but that later cohort received mRNA vaccines. The paper does not show vaccine-elicited nucleoprotein-specific responses or establish similarly lasting responses for the viral-vector vaccine. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Interest in vaccine-elicited T cell responses has increased due to immune escape by variants, such as Omicron.

    “Interest in vaccine-elicited T cell responses has increased due to immune escape by variants, such as Omicron29.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Tarke, A., Coelho, C. H., Zhang, Z., Dan, J. M., Yu, E. D., Methot, N., Bloom, N. I., Goodwin, B., Phillips, E., Mallal, S., Sidney, J., Filaci, G., Weiskopf, D., da Silva Antunes, R., Crotty, S., Grifoni, A., & Sette, A.
Affiliations
  • La Jolla Institute for Immunology (US)
  • Murdoch University (AU)
  • Ospedale Policlinico San Martino (IT)
Corresponding author
  • Crotty, Shane
  • Grifoni, Alba
  • Sette, Alessandro
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2022-03
Volume
185
Issue
5
Pages
847-859.e11
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4207047906
Cited by
858
References
54
Citations by year
2026: 48 · 2025: 116 · 2024: 166 · 2023: 241 · 2022: 287
FWCI
99.69
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Murdoch University Research Portal (submittedVersion)
  • CINECA IRIS Institutial Research Information System (University of Genoa) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
NIH
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › T-cell and B-cell Immunology
Keywords
COVID-19 vaccination, T cell memory, Omicron variant, SARS-CoV-2 variants, mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, Ad26.COV2-S, NVX-CoV2373, memory B cells, neutralizing antibodies, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, vaccine platform comparison
MeSH terms
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 Vaccines, BNT162 Vaccine, Ad26COVS1, Memory B Cells, Memory T Cells, Epitopes, Humans, Vaccination, CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes, CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte, Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review