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. 2022 Jul;28(7):366.e1-366.e7.
doi: 10.1016/j.jtct.2022.04.017. Epub 2022 Apr 26.

Immune Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Young Patients with Anti-CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell-Induced B Cell Aplasia

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Immune Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Young Patients with Anti-CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell-Induced B Cell Aplasia

Andrea Jarisch et al. Transplant Cell Ther. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines are capable of inducing combined humoral and cellular immunity. Which effect is more relevant for their potent protective effects is unclear, but isolated T cell responses without seroconversion in healthy household members of individuals with Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) suggest that T cell responses effectively protect against clinical infection. Oncologic patients have an outsize risk of unfavorable outcomes after SARS-CoV-2 infection and therefore were prioritized when vaccines first became available, although the quality of their immune response to vaccination was expected to be suboptimal, as has been confirmed in subsequent studies. Inherently, patients with anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy-mediated B cell aplasia would be incapable of generating humoral responses, so that assessment of the vaccine-induced cellular immunity is all the more important to gauge whether the vaccine can induce meaningful protection. A salient difference between T cell and humoral responses is the former's relative impassiveness to mutations of the antigen, which is more relevant than ever since the advent of the omicron variant. The objective of this study was to assess the immune cell composition and spike protein-specific T cell responses before and after the first and second doses of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine in a cohort of juvenile CD19 CAR T cell therapy recipients with enduring B cell aplasia. The prospective study included all patients age >12 years diagnosed with multiply relapsed B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia and treated with anti-CD19 CAR T cell (CAR-T19) therapy in our center. The primary endpoint was the detection of cell-mediated and humoral responses to vaccine (flow cytometry and anti-S immunoglobulin G, respectively). Secondary endpoints included the incidence of vaccine-related grade 3 or 4 adverse events, exacerbation of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), relapse, and the influence of the vaccine on CAR T cells and lymphocyte subsets. Even though one-half of the patients exhibited subnormal lymphocyte counts and marginal CD4/CD8 ratios, after 2 vaccinations all showed brisk T-cell responsiveness to spike protein, predominantly in the CD4 compartment, which quantitatively was well within the range of healthy controls. No severe vaccine-related grade 3 or 4 adverse events, GVHD exacerbation, or relapse was observed in our cohort. We posit that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines induce meaningful cellular immunity in patients with isolated B cell deficiency due to CAR-T19 therapy.

Keywords: Anti-CD19 CAR T cell-induced B cell aplasia; CAR T cell therapy; Immune response; SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Exemplary FACS plots. The figure shows exemplary flow cytometry density plots of SARS-CoV-2 specific T-cells in a patient before and after 1st and 2nd vaccinations with an mRNA vaccine. Plots, gated on T helper cells, show CD3 (X-axis) over the cytokines IFN-γ, IL-2, TNF-α and CD154, respectively (top to bottom, Y-axis).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Lymphocyte subpopulations and persistence of CAR-T cells. Shown are selected lymphocyte subsets before and after the 1st and 2nd vaccination dose. The reference ranges for healthy controls are shown in green. In the median, the patients show absolute lymphocyte values slightly below the reference range (A), whereas the median absolute cell counts for T-helper and cytotoxic T-cells were in the lower reference range (B+C). Median NK-cells were slightly decreased (D). CAR T-cell concentrations were stable over the vaccination period (E). All but one patient showed complete B-cell aplasia (F).
Figure 3
Figure 3
T-cell differentiation. Flow cytometric measurements of naïve, central, effector memory, and EMRA T-cells for T-helper (A) and cytotoxic T-cells (B) illustrate the paucity of naïve T-cells in both compartments. Normal values for the respective T-cell subsets of healthy adolescents are highlighted in green. Vaccination did not significantly alter the composition of T cells.
Figure 4
Figure 4
T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination. SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses of helper (A) and cytotoxic cells (C) is shown for CAR-T patients and healthy controls (B, D). Patients after CAR-T cell therapy showed a significant increase in specific T-helper cells after the 2nd vaccination (A). Compared with healthy controls (E), significantly higher levels of SARS-CoV-2 specific CD4+ T-cells were obtained for IL-2, TNFα, CD40L, and IL-2+CD40L. Similar outcomes, albeit less pronounced than for helper T-cells, were observed for cytotoxic T-cells (C). Antigen-specific cytotoxic T-cells from healthy vaccine recipients and CAR-T19 patients were similar in frequency (D).

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