iScience
Volume 24, Issue 9, 24 September 2021, 103078
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Article
Development of humoral and cellular immunological memory against SARS-CoV-2 despite B cell depleting treatment in multiple sclerosis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.103078Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • BCDT might blunt antibody responses after COVID-19 infection or vaccination

  • Patients with no detectable B cells in the blood might still produce antibodies

  • A majority of patients that do not develop antibodies still display a T cell response

  • SARS-CoV-2 T-cells produce Th1 cytokines both in patients on BCDT and untreated

Summary

B cell depleting therapies (BCDTs) are widely used as immunomodulating agents for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Their possible impact on development of immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has raised concerns with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We here evaluated the frequency of COVID-19-like symptoms and determined immunological responses in participants of an observational trial comprising several multiple sclerosis disease modulatory drugs (COMBAT-MS; NCT03193866) and in eleven patients after vaccination, with a focus on BCDT. Almost all seropositive and 17.9% of seronegative patients on BCDT, enriched for a history of COVID-19-like symptoms, developed anti-SARS-CoV-2 T cell memory, and T cells displayed functional similarity to controls producing IFN-γ and TNF. Following vaccination, vaccine-specific humoral memory was impaired, while all patients developed a specific T cell response. These results indicate that BCDTs do not abrogate SARS-CoV-2 cellular memory and provide a possible explanation as to why the majority of patients on BCDTs recover from COVID-19.

Subject areas

Immunology
Virology

Data and code availability

This study did not generate/analyze [datasets/code].

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These authors contributed equally

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