Skip to main content
NCBI home page

This is a preprint.

It has not yet been peer reviewed by a journal.

The National Library of Medicine is running a pilot to include preprints that result from research funded by NIH in PMC and PubMed.

medRxiv logoLink to medRxiv
[Preprint]. 2022 Jan 4:2022.01.03.22268599. [Version 2] doi: 10.1101/2022.01.03.22268599

Antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine in lung cancer patients: Reactivity to vaccine antigen and variants of concern

Rajesh M Valanparambil, Jennifer Carlisle, Susanne L Linderman, Akil Akthar, Ralph Linwood Millett, Lilin Lai, Andres Chang, Ashley A McCook, Jeffrey Switchenko, Tahseen H Nasti, Manpreet Saini, Andreas Wieland, Kelly E Manning, Madison Ellis, Kathryn M Moore, Stephanie L Foster, Katharine Floyd, Meredith E Davis-Gardner, Venkata-Viswanadh Edara, Mit Patel, Conor Steur, Ajay K Nooka, Felicia Green, Margaret A Johns, Fiona O’Brein, Uma Shanmugasundaram, Veronika I Zarnitsyna, Hasan Ahmed, Lindsay E Nyhoff, Grace Mantus, Michael Garett, Srilatha Edupuganti, Madhusmita Behra, Rustom Antia, Jens Wrammert, Mehul S Suthar, Madhav V Dhodapkar, Suresh Ramalingam, Rafi Ahmed
PMCID: PMC8750706  PMID: 35018383

Abstract

Purpose

We investigated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-induced binding and live-virus neutralizing antibody response in NSCLC patients to the SARS-CoV-2 wild type strain and the emerging Delta and Omicron variants.

Methods

82 NSCLC patients and 53 healthy adult volunteers who received SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines were included in the study. Blood was collected longitudinally, and SARS-CoV-2-specific binding and live-virus neutralization response to 614D (WT), B.1.617.2 (Delta), B.1.351 (Beta) and B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variants were evaluated by Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) assay and Focus Reduction Neutralization Assay (FRNT) respectively. We determined the longevity and persistence of vaccine-induced antibody response in NSCLC patients. The effect of vaccine-type, age, gender, race and cancer therapy on the antibody response was evaluated.

Results

Binding antibody titer to the mRNA vaccines were lower in the NSCLC patients compared to the healthy volunteers (P=<0.0001). More importantly, NSCLC patients had reduced live-virus neutralizing activity compared to the healthy vaccinees (P=<0.0001). Spike and RBD-specific binding IgG titers peaked after a week following the second vaccine dose and declined after six months (P=<0.001). While patients >70 years had lower IgG titers (P=<0.01), patients receiving either PD-1 monotherapy, chemotherapy or a combination of both did not have a significant impact on the antibody response. Binding antibody titers to the Delta and Beta variants were lower compared to the WT strain (P=<0.0001). Importantly, we observed significantly lower FRNT 50 titers to Delta (6-fold), and Omicron (79-fold) variants (P=<0.0001) in NSCLC patients.

Conclusions

Binding and live-virus neutralizing antibody titers to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in NSCLC patients were lower than the healthy vaccinees, with significantly lower live-virus neutralization of B.1.617.2 (Delta), and more importantly, the B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variant compared to the wild-type strain. These data highlight the concern for cancer patients given the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant.

Full Text Availability

The license terms selected by the author(s) for this preprint version do not permit archiving in PMC. The full text is available from the preprint server.

Articles from medRxiv are provided here courtesy of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Preprints

RESOURCES