Fig. 3

Comparison of in vitro-enriched memory responses against spike after mRNA vaccination elicited by vaccination or COVID-19 in persons with lung transplantation versus vaccinated healthy control persons demonstrates a defect predominately in the CD8⁺ T cell subset. Boosted memory T cell responses against spike were assayed (as per Fig. 2) in 21 lung transplantation individuals who had received two doses of primary vaccination but no booster vaccination (tested 42 to 188 days after vaccination, mean 99 days), 19 lung transplantation individuals who had subsequently received booster vaccination (tested 8 to 50 days after booster vaccination, mean 17 days), 8 lung transplantation individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 that occurred either before or after vaccination and/or booster vaccination, and 22 healthy control non-transplanted individuals who had received only two doses of primary vaccination (tested 21 to 235 days after vaccination, mean 121 days). For the CD4⁺ (left) and CD8⁺ (right) T cell memory responses, plots are given for the percentages of persons (Y-axis) who had detected spike-specific enriched memory responses at or above certain frequencies (X-axis). Log-rank test statistical comparisons in the CD4⁺ subsets revealed no significant differences between control versus transplant-vaccinated, control versus transplant-boosted, and transplant-vaccinated versus transplant-boosted (p-values of 0.091, 0.84, and 0.57 respectively). In the CD8⁺ subsets, comparisons between control versus transplant-vaccinated, control versus transplant-boosted, and transplant-vaccinated versus transplant-boosted (p-values of 0.00075, 0.022, and 0.15) demonstrated that the control group memory responses were significantly higher than both transplant groups. Statistical comparisons to the COVID-19-recovered group were not performed due to the small number of subjects