SARS-CoV-2 vaccination-infection pattern imprints and diversifies T cell differentiation and neutralizing response against Omicron subvariants

The effects of different SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and variant infection histories on imprinting population immunity and their influence on emerging escape mutants remain unclear. We found that Omicron (BA.1) breakthrough infection, regardless of vaccination with two-dose mRNA vaccines (M-M-o) or two-dose inactivated vaccines (I-I-o), led to higher neutralizing antibody levels against different variants and stronger T-cell responses than Delta breakthrough infection after two-dose inactivated vaccine vaccination (I-I-d). Furthermore, different vaccination-infection patterns imprinted virus-specific T-cell differentiation; M-M-o showed higher S/M/N/E-specific CD4⁺ T cells and less portion of virus-specific CD45RA⁺CD27⁻CD8⁺ T cells by ex vivo assay. Breakthrough infection groups showed higher proliferation and multi-function capacity by in vitro assay than three-dose inactivated vaccine inoculated group (I-I). Thus, under wide vaccination coverage, higher immunogenicity with the Omicron variant may have helped to eliminate the population of Delta variant. Overall, our data contribute to our understanding of immune imprinting in the context of durability and adaptive future vaccination programs.

Junxiang Wang, Kaiyi Li, Xinyue Mei, Jinping Cao, Jiaying Zhong, Peiyu Huang, Qi Luo, Guichang Li, Rui Wei, Nanshan Zhong, Zhu Xiang Zhao, Zhongfang Wang