Rituximab-treated patients with lymphoma develop strong CD8 T-cell responses following COVID-19 vaccination
Riise, Jon; Meyer, Saskia; Blaas, Isaac; Chopra, Adity; Tran, Trung; Delic-Sarac, Marina; Hestdalen, Malu Lian; Brodin, Ellen Elisabeth; Rustad, Even Holth; Dai, Ke-Zheng; Vaage, John T.; Nissen-Meyer, Lise Sofie Haug; Sund, Fredrik; Wader, Karin Fahl; Bjørnevik, Anne Turid; Meyer, Peter Albert; Nygaard, Gro Owren; König, Marton; Smeland, Sigbjørn; Lund-Johansen, Fridtjof; Olweus, Johanna; Kolstad, Arne
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3052018Utgivelsesdato
2022Metadata
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B-cell depletion induced by anti-cluster of differentiation 20 (CD20) monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy of patients with lymphoma is expected to impair humoral responses to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination, but effects on CD8 T-cell responses are unknown. Here, we investigated humoral and CD8 T-cell responses following two vaccinations in patients with lymphoma undergoing anti-CD20-mAb therapy as single agent or in combination with chemotherapy or other anti-neoplastic agents during the last 9 months prior to inclusion, and in healthy age-matched blood donors. Antibody measurements showed that seven of 110 patients had antibodies to the receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein 3–6 weeks after the second dose of vaccination. Peripheral blood CD8 T-cell responses against prevalent human leucocyte antigen (HLA) class I SARS-CoV-2 epitopes were determined by peptide-HLA multimer analysis. Strong CD8 T-cell responses were observed in samples from 20/29 patients (69%) and 12/16 (75%) controls, with similar median response magnitudes in the groups and some of the strongest responses observed in patients. We conclude that despite the absence of humoral immune responses in fully SARS-CoV-2-vaccinated, anti-CD20-treated patients with lymphoma, their CD8 T-cell responses reach similar frequencies and magnitudes as for controls. Patients with lymphoma on B-cell depleting therapies are thus likely to benefit from current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, and development of vaccines aimed at eliciting T-cell responses to non-Spike epitopes might provide improved protection.