Humoral and Cellular Immunogenicity of Six Different Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 in Adults: A Comparative Study in Tunisia (North Africa)

Abstract

Background: The mass vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2 was started in Tunisia on 13 March 2021 by using progressively seven different vaccines approved for emergency use. Herein, we aimed to evaluate the humoral and cellular immunity in subjects aged 40 years and over who received one of the following two-dose regimen vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, namely mRNA-1273 or Spikevax (Moderna), BNT162B2 or Comirnaty (Pfizer-BioNTech), Gam-COVID-Vac or Sputnik V (Gamaleya Research Institute), ChAdOx1-S or Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca), BIBP (Sinopharm), and Coronavac (Sinovac). Material and methods: For each type of vaccine, a sample of subjects aged 40 and over was randomly selected from the national platform for monitoring COVID-19 vaccination and contacted to participate to this study. All consenting participants were sampled for peripheral blood at 3–7 weeks after the second vaccine dose to perform anti-S and anti-N serology by the Elecsys® (Lenexa, KS, USA) anti-SARS-CoV-2 assays (Roche® Basel, Switzerland). The CD4 and CD8 T cell responses were evaluated by the QuantiFERON® SARS-CoV-2 (Qiagen® Basel, Switzerland) for a randomly selected sub-group. Results: A total of 501 people consented to the study and, of them, 133 were included for the cellular response investigations. Both humoral and cellular immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 antigens differed significantly between all tested groups. RNA vaccines induced the highest levels of humoral and cellular anti-S responses followed by adenovirus vaccines and then by inactivated vaccines. Vaccines from the same platform induced similar levels of specific anti-S immune responses except in the case of the Sputnik V and the AstraZeneca vaccine, which exhibited contrasting effects on humoral and cellular responses. When analyses were performed in subjects with negative anti-N antibodies, results were similar to those obtained within the total cohort, except for the Moderna vaccine, which gave a better cellular immune response than the Pfizer vaccine and RNA vaccines, which induced similar cellular immune responses to those of adenovirus vaccines. Conclusion: Collectively, our data confirmed the superiority of the RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, in particular that of Moderna, for both humoral and cellular immunogenicity. Our results comparing between different vaccine platforms in a similar population are of great importance since they may help decision makers to adopt the best strategy for further national vaccination programs.

Antibody responses to mRNA versus non-mRNA COVID vaccines among the Mongolian population

“…RNA vaccines have been shown to induce the highest levels of humoral and cellular anti-S responses, followed by adenovirus vaccines and then inactivated vaccines. A previous study found better humoral and cellular immunogenicity for RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines including BNT162b2 [29] . Dashdorj et al.…”

mRNA vaccines: The future of prevention of viral infections?

“…Moreover, mRNA COVID‐19 vaccines have been demonstrated to elicit superior adaptive cellular responses compared to other authorized COVID‐19 vaccines. Median levels of CD4 + responses following two doses of mRNA vaccine were 3–4‐fold higher than in the case of two doses of adenoviral AZD1222 vaccine (Oxford/AstraZeneca), 5–6‐fold higher compared to two doses of adenoviral Sputnik V vaccine (Gamaleya Research Institute, Russia), and over 10‐fold higher than after administration of two doses of inactivated CoronaVac (Sinovac) and BIBP (Sinopharm) vaccines 63 . The CD8 + reactivity was also significantly higher after mRNA vaccine administration than in the case of other formulations 63 .…”

A Longitudinal Study in Tunisia to Assess the Anti-RBD IgG and IgA Responses Induced by Three Different COVID-19 Vaccine Platforms

“…The participants involved were mostly of a younger age, predominantly female, and had either not been infected (no symptoms) or mild manifestations of COVID-19 during prior infections. A recent study reported that vaccines from the same platforms had elicited similar rates of specific anti-S antibodies [ 23 , 38 ]. Moreover, the numbers in the different vaccine groups had been low except in the RNA vaccine group.…”