A third vaccination with a single T cell epitope protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the absence of neutralizing antibodies

ABSTRACT

Understanding the mechanisms and impact of booster vaccinations can facilitate decisions on vaccination programmes. This study shows that three doses of the same synthetic peptide vaccine eliciting an exclusive CD8+ T cell response against one SARS-CoV-2 Spike epitope protected all mice against lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection in the K18-hACE2 transgenic mouse model in the absence of neutralizing antibodies, while only a second vaccination with this T cell vaccine was insufficient to provide protection. The third vaccine dose of the single T cell epitope peptide resulted in superior generation of effector-memory T cells in the circulation and tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells, and these tertiary vaccine-specific CD8+ T cells were characterized by enhanced polyfunctional cytokine production. Moreover, fate mapping showed that a substantial fraction of the tertiary effector-memory CD8+ T cells developed from remigrated TRM cells. Thus, repeated booster vaccinations quantitatively and qualitatively improve the CD8+ T cell response leading to protection against otherwise lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection. SummaryA third dose with a single T cell epitope-vaccine promotes a strong increase in tissue-resident memory CD8+ T cells and fully protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection, while single B cell epitope-eliciting vaccines are unable to provide protection.