Inactivated vaccine fueled adaptive immune responses to Omicron in
2-year COVID-19 convalescents
Abstract
Over three years, humans have experienced multiple rounds of global
transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants. In addition, the widely
used vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 involve multiple strategies of
development and inoculation. Thus, the acquired immunity established
among humans is complicated, and there is a lack of understanding within
a panoramic vision. Here, we provide the special characteristics of the
cellular and humoral responses in 2-year convalescents after inactivated
vaccines, in parallel to vaccinated COVID-19 naïve persons and
unvaccinated controls. The decreasing trends of the IgG, IgA, and NAb,
but not IgM of the convalescents were reversed by the vaccination. Both
cellular and humoral immunity in convalescents after vaccination were
higher than the vaccinated COVID-19 naïve persons. Notably, inoculation
with inactivated vaccine fueled the NAb to BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 in
2-year convalescents, much higher than the NAb during 6 months and 1
year after symptoms onset. And no obvious T cell escaping to the S
protein was observed in 2-year convalescents after inoculation. The
study provides insight into the complicated features of human acquired
immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and variants in the real world, indicating that
promoting vaccine inoculation is essential for achieving herd immunity
against emerging variants, especially in convalescents.