Abstract
Solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients receive immunosuppressive drugs (ISDs) and are susceptible to developing severe COVID-19. Here, we analyze the Spike-specific T-cell response after 3 doses of mRNA vaccine in a group of SOT patients (nā=ā136) treated with different ISDs. We demonstrate that a combination of a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI), mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), and prednisone (Pred) treatment regimen strongly suppressed the mRNA vaccine-induced Spike-specific cellular response. Such defects have clinical consequences because the magnitude of vaccine-induced Spike-specific T cells was directly proportional to the ability of SOT patients to rapidly clear SARS-CoV-2 after breakthrough infection. To then compensate for the T-cell defects induced by immunosuppressive treatment and to develop an alternative therapeutic strategy for SOT patients, we describe production of 6 distinct SARS-CoV-2 epitope-specific ISD-resistant T-cell receptor (TCR)-T cells engineered using the mRNA electroporation method with reactivity minimally affected by mutations occurring in Beta, Delta, Gamma, and Omicron variants. This strategy with transient expression characteristics marks an improvement in the immunotherapeutic field and provides an attractive and novel therapeutic possibility for immunosuppressed COVID-19 patients.
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Data availability
For original data, please contact Antonio Bertoletti (antonio@duke-nus.edu.sg).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Singapore National University Centre for Organ Transplantation team members who helped recruit patients: AV, AL, and WKK. We thank all voluntary blood donors for their donations. We would like to thank the members of ABās lab for their insights and critique. Finally, we would also like to thank Dr. Yongxu Lu and Prof. Geoffrey L. Smith from the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, U.K., for supplying the vaccinia virus-expressing Spike and Nucleocapsid proteins. This study was supported by research funding from the Singapore Ministry of Healthās National Medical Research Council MOH-000019 (MOH-StaR17Nov-001) to Antonio Bertoletti. Part of this work was also supported by the A*ccelerate GAP-funded project (ACCL/19-GAP064-R20H-H) from the Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Singapore National Medical Research Council COVID-19 Research Fund (COVID19RF-011) and a Start-up University Grant from the Ministry of Education (Singapore) to Laurent Renia. YSG was supported by a Career Development Fund award by A*STAR (SC35/22-805100).
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QC and AB conceptualized and designed the experiments. QC, AC, SKH, KK, YC.P, FG, and JLC performed the experiments. AL, WKK, and AV recruited the transplant patients and collected the samples. ZH and LEW performed the single-cell TCRĀ sequencing experiment. YSG, CYL, and LR generated constructs for EBV-B cells expressing the ancestral and the Omicron variant spike proteins. QC, YCP, ATT, TD, NLB, and AB analyzed and interpreted the data. QC prepared the figures. QC and AB wrote the manuscript. AB designed and coordinated the study and provided funding.
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AB is a cofounder of and ATT consults for Lion TCR, a biotech company developing T-cell receptors for treatment of virus-related diseases and cancers. ZH and LEW are employees of Lion TCR Pte. Ltd. None of the other authors has any competing interests related to the study.
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Chen, Q., Chia, A., Hang, S.K. et al. Engineering immunosuppressive drug-resistant armored (IDRA) SARS-CoV-2 T cells for cell therapy. Cell Mol Immunol 20, 1300ā1312 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-023-01080-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-023-01080-3