Integration of Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses as an Immunomonitoring Tool for SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Healthy and Fragile Subjects

Abstract

Cellular and humoral immunity are both required for SARS-CoV-2 infection recovery and vaccine efficacy. The factors affecting mRNA vaccination-induced immune responses, in healthy and fragile subjects, are still under investigation. Thus, we monitored the vaccine-induced cellular and humoral immunity in healthy subjects and cancer patients after vaccination to define whether a different antibody titer reflected similar rates of cellular immune responses and if cancer has an impact on vaccination efficacy. We found that higher titers of antibodies were associated with a higher probability of positive cellular immunity and that this greater immune response was correlated with an increased number of vaccination side effects. Moreover, active T-cell immunity after vaccination was associated with reduced antibody decay. The vaccine-induced cellular immunity appeared more likely in healthy subjects rather than in cancer patients. Lastly, after boosting, we observed a cellular immune conversion in 20% of subjects, and a strong correlation between pre- and post-boosting IFN-γ levels, while antibody levels did not display a similar association. Finally, our data suggested that integrating humoral and cellular immune responses could allow the identification of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responders and that T-cell responses seem more stable over time compared to antibodies, especially in cancer patients.