The idea is that pre-existing reminiscence T cells generated by prior MMR or Tdap vaccination and activated by SARS-CoV-2 an infection give the immune system a head begin in responding to SARS-CoV-2, thereby decreasing the chance of extreme COVID-19.
To examine whether or not the MMR and Tdap vaccines present extra safety in opposition to COVID-19, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital performed laboratory-based analyses utilizing delicate, new methods to detect and characterize T cell responses to antigens.
They utilized these methods to measure the response of T cells remoted from the blood of COVID-19 convalescent sufferers and sufferers vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 to antigens from SARS-CoV-2 and the MMR and Tdap vaccines.
Teaming up with collaborators at Cleveland Clinic, in addition they leveraged a big, well-annotated cohort of COVID-19 sufferers and located that prior MMR or Tdap vaccination was related to decreased illness severity. Their outcomes are printed in Med.
“Our Cleveland Clinic colleagues observed an association where individuals with COVID-19 who had either MMR or Tdap vaccines had a much lower frequency of going to the intensive care unit or dying,” mentioned co-author Andrew Lichtman, MD, PhD, an immunologist and senior investigator within the Brigham’s Department of Pathology and professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.
“Although previous smaller studies suggested a similar link, our in-depth epidemiological analyses, together with our basic research results, suggest that these commonly given vaccines may protect against severe disease.”
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that there was a marked decline in routine vaccinations for children and adolescents,” mentioned corresponding writer Tanya Mayadas, PhD, a senior scientist within the Brigham’s Department of Pathology and professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.
“Our findings emphasize the importance of routine vaccination for children and adults. We know vaccines protect against devastating diseases, and we’re now seeing growing evidence that some of them provide a degree of protection against severe COVID-19 disease.”
The staff’s investigation was jumpstarted by an surprising statement. Mayadas, her postdoctoral fellow Vijaya Mysore, PhD, and colleagues famous in laboratory experiments utilizing COVID-19 convalescent blood that every time they noticed a heightened T cell response to SARS-CoV-2 proteins, in addition they noticed a heightened response to proteins from MMR and Tdap, which they’d been utilizing as controls.
This was noticed with each COVID-19 convalescent and uninfected people vaccinated in opposition to SARS-CoV-2. This connection was made by the staff’s use of extremely environment friendly antigen-presenting cells (described in a lately printed Nature Communications paper) derived from blood, loaded with SARS-CoV-2, MMR or Tdap antigens, and co-cultured with T cells from the identical particular person.
Using single-cell RNA sequencing and evaluation of T cell antigen receptors, the staff noticed that the antigen receptors on lots of the T cells from people who had recovered from COVID-19 that responded to proteins from SARS-CoV-2 (Spike-S1 and Nucleocapsid) had been similar to the antigen receptors on T cells that responded to MMR and Tdap proteins.
This discovery indicated the presence of T cell clones that may reply to each SARS-CoV-2 antigens and the MMR and Tdap vaccine antigens.
In a second evaluation, Mayadas and colleagues teamed up with investigators at Cleveland Clinic to look at the epidemiological proof. The Cleveland Clinic staff carried out a retrospective cohort research utilizing knowledge from greater than 75,000 sufferers seen on the Cleveland Clinic Health System in Ohio or Florida who had examined optimistic for COVID-19 between March 8, 2020, and March 31, 2021.
The staff used a statistical methodology referred to as overlap propensity rating weighting to match two illness severity outcomes (COVID-related hospitalization and COVID-related admission to the intensive care unit or loss of life) for sufferers who had been vaccinated in opposition to MMR or Tdap and people who had not.
They discovered that sufferers who had beforehand been vaccinated for MMR had a 38 p.c lower in hospitalization and a 32 p.c lower in ICU admission/loss of life. Similarly, sufferers beforehand vaccinated for Tdap had 23 p.c and 20 p.c decreased charges, respectively, of those outcomes.
“Beyond learning about the potential benefits of the MMR and Tdap vaccines in the context of COVID-19, this study provides a blueprint for accelerating research,” mentioned co-author Lara Jehi, MD, MHCDS, Chief Research Information Officer of the Cleveland Clinic Health System.
“Biomedical hypotheses generated in the laboratory can be explored through robust clinical and epidemiological research in well-curated, real-world data such as the Cleveland Clinic COVID Registry. Knowledge learned through this collaboration is much more than the sum of our individual parts.”
The authors observe that whereas their laboratory-based findings are strengthened by the epidemiological observations, additional work is required to evaluate the affiliation between the MMR and Tdap vaccinations and severity of COVID-19 illness to find out if the connection is a causal one. Prospective research of vaccination and affected person outcomes could assist distinguish correlation from causation.
“With regards to COVID-19 vaccines, our findings predict that although MMR and Tdap are not a substitute for COVID-19 vaccines they may afford greater and more durable protection, possibly against emerging spike variants than the COVID-19 vaccine alone,” mentioned Mayadas. “And in areas where the COVID-19 vaccines are not available, they could protect infected individuals from developing severe disease.”
Source: Eurekalert
